Legal teams leading the charge for ED&I

At the beginning of October we held our annual conference of Heads of Legal and GCs with the theme "Embedding the in-house legal team at the heart of the business" which included expert panels sharing their views.

In our next panel session, we spoke about how embedding legal teams into the core of business operations can champion Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in a transformative way. Andrew Whiteaker lead this panel session featuring Robin Carvell-Spedding from Protium and Polly Tassell from CarWow. We promise you'll gain fresh insights into the role of legal teams in fostering a truly inclusive workplace. From tackling challenges in traditionally male-dominated industries to embracing diverse perspectives in EDI initiatives, this conversation is packed with valuable lessons and real-world experiences.

The episode also explores the topic of paternity leave as a driver of gender equality. By encouraging fathers to take paternity leave, businesses can support gender equality both in the workplace and at home. This approach not only empowers women to pursue their careers but also challenges traditional gender roles, leading to a more balanced and equitable society. 

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Transcript

Rowan Turrall 0:03

Hello , I'm Rowan Turrall , Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution at Boyes Turner . In early October , we held an event at the Caledonian Club in London called Embedding the In-House Legal Team at the Heart of the Business . We heard from speakers on a number of topics , with one of the panels being all about how legal teams can support EDI initiatives within their teams and across the business . They got together after the panel had ended to reflect on their early discussion .

Andrew Whiteaker 0:31

Hi , this is Andy Whiteaker , Partner and Head of the Employment Team at Boyes Turner , and I am very pleased to say that I've just finished my panel session with panel members Robin Carvell-Spedding from Proteum and also Polly Tassell from CarWow , so I really enjoyed the last hour or so we had talking about ED&I and supporting those initiatives in the workplace . What do you think were the most interesting things to come out of our conversation ?

Robin Carvell-Spedding 0:58

One of my sort of initial thoughts and takeaways was just again , what a broad topic it is . That's an obvious thing to say . We all know that um , uh . But you know we talked for about an hour uh , and we , you know , despite best efforts , probably barely scratched the surface of some of this . Um , you know , we've all got our experiences , uh , particular , you know , probably as a result of those experiences , particular areas of focus , um , in the sort of ED and I world as to what we want to focus on , what's in particular important to us .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 1:25

But of course there's there's a whole variety of other aspects of diversity which , again , we talked about and we brought up everything from neurodiversity to gender equality , through social mobility and linking that back into the topic of the session . I think at times it can seem again as maybe from the legal team , where you're busy with your business as usual day job . Where do you start ? How can I actually make a difference ? Say , I want to make a difference and this is more to me , but there are going to be other areas of diversity which are important to the other people in the business . So that was one of my key areas and it was great to hear the stuff coming from the floor around that too . So we might be talking things on the panel , but clearly other people , as I said , are there as a focus too .

Andrew Whiteaker 2:08

Yeah , and how about you Polly ? What were the key takeaways for you ?

Polly Tassell 2:11

I think , yeah , the broad topic and then making sure that you're talking to everybody in the room and making sure you're getting across your you know all the different , diverse perspectives . I think it's really great to have Robin on the panel as well and the energy that he obviously brings in this area in his company and especially from a kind of traditionally more male background in the sort of companies oil and gas companies he's working for . So it's you know .

Andrew Whiteaker 2:40

Yeah , and I think it's really important as well that we have um , we have role models we have individuals who are , who are willing to to stand up , share their experiences , talk about things that haven't worked as well as they would like them to , but also talk about their successes . I , I know personally , I go and do training for lots of clients and I stand up and I talk about ed and I issues , and I'm mindful of my , of my , my position as being a middle-aged white man as well , um , middle class , I would probably say too and therefore I'm not necessarily going to have the same shared experience as everyone in the room that I'm speaking to , but that doesn't mean that I can't be a , you know , a champion , an ally for these , for these issues , and I think it's really important that that everyone does so .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 3:20

I agree , and I think we talked a bit about almost self-excluding yourself in that regard . I've been guilty of that in the past . You know the phrase pale , male , stale comes to mind which are now , as a result of a great ED&I session I went to last year . Do not use , because I think that the risk is , you know , either externally and also , more importantly , internally , you're saying to yourself well , I can't be a part of this discussion , I can't be part of the change we want to see because of who I am , because of my experiences , which is , you know , not . It's an understandable starting point at times .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 3:47

I think , again , there's maybe an element we talked a bit about . You know , are people within businesses sometimes fearful of saying the wrong thing , doing the wrong thing ? They want to be part of the change , they want to be part of the debate and taking action to improve things for everybody around dd and I . But actually , as you're rightly saying , polly's become quite politicized or very politicized in certain areas . So the risk I think sometimes people see a bit of risk there , including at the senior level , and that's a hurdle which I think most lawyers can help overcome , overcome a from a risk perspective , because we like talking about risk , but B from a sort of general perspective . Well , given our position within the business sort of across in most instances the vast majority of the business rather than just a few different silos , and we can sort of hopefully be that positive agent for change , as you say , andy , by sort of role modelling , what we want to do in that .

Andrew Whiteaker 4:33

Yeah , and I often say to clients that I do accept . Accept that employment law is a complicated area . It's an area that is frequently and constantly changing . We're about to see some further changes as a result of the change of government . But if you read a lot of employment law legislation , you'll find the word reasonable popping up again and again and again , actually , and that's that doesn't underpin everything .

Andrew Whiteaker 4:52

But if you do find that you're treating your colleagues reasonably and if you ask yourself the question if this was happening to me , how would I feel about it ? And not maybe not just trying to take that empathetic leap , so actually not just asking well , how would I feel in in my particular circumstances if this were to happen to me ? But can I put myself in the shoes of that particular individual , understand their life experiences , understand their perspective on things ? If I can do that and answer the question legitimately , do I think this would be reasonable , do I think this is a fair way of treating people , then you're on the right track to making more good decisions than bad decisions ultimately . So people shouldn't be afraid of discussing these topics or looking to drive initiatives forward . They just need to listen , they need to understand what their colleagues and others are saying no-transcript .

Polly Tassell 5:46

And I think we also , you know . That point is that we all come at this from a completely unique perspective , and that was one of the things we talked about on the panel was that every single person in the room has come from somewhere , has had life experiences that lead them to think in a certain way , but we open ourselves up to all different perspectives , which is again what we were talking about how important that is in business to have a wide range of different perspectives so that you can serve your customer base best , serve your employee base best . So I think , yeah , one thing which always stems from these conversations is we can only live our own personal experience , and no one is wrong in that and I think maybe putting our sort of legal risk governance hats back on a bit um on .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 6:34

On this point , though I think you know conversations with , I think we're talking about not just the senior people within the business but everybody within the business , tone from the top , but tone from the middle , tone from throughout um , if we need to sort of um make people I sit up and listen if they're not doing so for the right reasons , I think the legal , reputational , financial retention and all sorts of other risks are far greater if we don't talk about it than if we do , and maybe do or say the wrong are not used to talking about it sort of a big scary area . I think if we can help them understand that actually in not engaging it , in not talking about it , in not putting in place the right policies , they're potentially opening themselves and the business up to bigger risks and the benefits , the opportunities there for every risk as an opportunity right , are even greater are even greater .

Andrew Whiteaker 7:31

When I provide training for clients , I often talk about engaging with HR managers or HR BPs or directors , who sit there furiously agreeing with me , nodding away with everything that I've got to say yes , you're right , that's absolutely right . Yes , we need to do all these things and that's fantastic as far as it goes , but unless that message is shared more widely and unless it gets buy-in through across the entirety of the business , it's not that the time is wasted , but it's so important that the message doesn't just start and stop with a particular group of individuals . Everyone needs to engage with the process .

Polly Tassell 7:55

I agree I think this is one thing which we were wanting to kind of discuss as well on the panel that perhaps we didn't spend as much air time on um as we might have liked um , but is on paternity leave and role modeling of taking that . I know that that's um something that you're particularly passionate about .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 8:10

Yes , it is , it is and going back to the point about you know , um , I don't like sort of stereotypical phrases like lived experiences . I think you have an experience . It's . It's either lived or it's not , but anyway , um , my experience , my lived experience around that , I guess , as you're saying , probably , you know , drives my particular interest and focus in this um , uh , just sort of briefly for context , two , two young children , uh , four and and um seven , going on 17 um and um uh , in order to have any real any time off with the family , when my daughter was first born in 2016 , I just had to quit my then in-house contract role that I had , because we're just talking about the fact that the shared parental leave legislation which I don't think it's really changed much of at all since then didn't allow me any rights around that .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 8:55

I was actually a contractor , had a contractor status , not a full-time employee , and my wife's also self-employed , so it was sort of a bit of a non-starter and even actually when I looked at it , you know , trying to digest and understand that legislation , even as a lawyer , is quite complicated Through to then my son being born during the pandemic , I had four weeks , two of which were annual leave and then the statutory after that .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 9:19

So I think for me it's A about the role of working fathers in modern life , modern world , for their own good and the good of the children , the good of the family and the good of society .

Robin Carvell-Spedding 9:31

But it's the second , but by no means it's even more important aspect to , if you like , is , for me , a key route to gender equality . If you see men A having the ability to take the leave whether it's parental or paternity , whatever you call it and B actually doing so Again , we talked about some of the positive , negative experiences we've seen around this with senior male leaders , whether they're legal or otherwise , actually using the policy that they put in place . Um , I think , then , that should , to my mind , allow , as one of the key routes , to a greater sense of , or greater , not just sense , but actual gender equality , both in the workplace and in wider society , because allow I think the obvious point being the female side of the partnership to then actually be more involved in their careers in the way they want to be , rather than having to step out for a year plus because they can only take maternity leave and the father can't take paternity leave .

Polly Tassell 10:18

I'm first of all so excited to be on a panel with someone that is saying these things . I've always been sort of a big supporter of paternity leave as a key driver of equality . It's a kind of yin and yang situation , isn't it ? You can't have female equality and senior women mothers in the organisation if you haven't got senior male fathers that are in the organisation . Because you know I think you know statistically and I don't have the statistics to hand but the proportion of women who take on the kind of main child raising after they've had maternity leave is quite significant , and I think also again , don't have statistics to hand but if you look at the amount of senior women in business , that's great , there is more visibility , there's more diversity . But then you look at how many of those women have children and it is significantly lower . So in terms of that role modeling , so I think paternity leave starts from day one .

Polly Tassell 11:10

And one thing that I always say to my friends you know and have said in the past , is don't assume that your husband can't pack the bag for the day . You know like of course they can . They can pack their own own bags , they can pack the child's bags . It's condescending , and if someone said that about women in the workplace , it would be , you know , awful . So I think , start from square one . Um , you know , make paternity leave happen so that you have an equal balance of responsibilities in the home , and it will trickle on to being equality at the higher levels and all levels of business , I think well , we've spent the last hour or so on the panel talking about these issues , and we've just spoken again for another 10 , 15 minutes .

Andrew Whiteaker 11:47

I'm sure we could speak for an awful lot longer time as well , but I think that probably brings us to the end of this brief chat . Remains for me to thank you both again , Polly and Robin , for your time this morning . Thanks for having us .

Rowan Turrall 12:03

That was Andy Whittaker talking to Polly Tassel and Robin Carvel-Spedding . Thanks for listening . If you're interested in checking out more episodes from the Boyes Turner team , then please do go to our website . You can also follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts . Goodbye .