In our Careers Clinic we hand over to you, our community, to send in a question on career progression.
This month, Andrew Hill, Senior HR Manager at Addleshaw Goddard answers a question from a lawyer looking to be a better ally to his female colleagues and explains how allyship and other equitable circumstances helps the firm to nurture female talent.
“I’m well aware of the fact that women continue to experience discrimination both within the legal profession and society more generally.
I know that it’s not just up to women to fix this and, like many of my male peers, I’d like to become a better advocate for gender equality within my firm but am not sure where to start. What can I do to be a good ally to my female colleagues?”
“At Addleshaw Goddard, we are proud to have a culture where different opinions, experiences and aspirations are valued. Ensuring we know and understand our female colleagues is crucial to this success and doing that well allows us to unlock potential. Often that happens organically, but in a firm our size, we also know that we need to be more sophisticated to cultivate equity without being overly prescriptive or formulaic. Mentoring and sponsorship have been two key ways by which we have been able to strike the balance – to enable ownership of allyship.
Providing these structured setups, to help our female colleagues navigate their careers, and to ensure advocacy and championing of work and potential, has meant we’ve seen results follow relationships. Female colleagues have taken up more opportunities because we’ve created equitable circumstances. Whilst we recognise there is always more to do, we feel we have the right foundations in place to nurture female talent and see further success in the future.”
Andrew Hill, Senior HR Manager, Addleshaw Goddard
Do you have a career question or dilemma you’d like help solving? If so, you can get in touch with us by completing the form at the bottom of this page.
About the Career Accelerator
The Careers Clinic features in our Career Accelerator mailout every few weeks. It is designed to help you develop your skills, get advice from leading lawyers in your practice area and better understand the current legal opportunities on offer. You can sign up to receive the Career Accelerator straight to your inbox, by completing the form below.
