Law firm retains prestigious accreditation

Award-winning law firm Blanchards Bailey LLP has been awarded the prestigious Investors in People accreditation for another three years.

The Dorset-based firm has retained its We Invest In People standard and improved its score against many of the benchmarked indicators.

Blanchards Bailey, which employs 92 people at four offices in the county, increased its score to 772 out of 900, well above both LLP and legal industry benchmarks.

Investors in People is an organisation which offers an unbiased and independent assessment of businesses’ people strategy, practices and outcomes after surveying staff to gauge their thoughts, feelings and opinions.

In Blanchards Bailey’s case 98 per cent of respondents agreed that the firm was a great place to work.

The firm’s staff were surveyed across a range of indicators, such as leadership and inspiration, values and behaviours, empowerment and involvement, managing performance, recognition and reward, delivering continuous improvement and creating sustainable success.

Investors in People reported that the firm’s ‘communication structures continue to work well, are transparent and as a result the leadership team is trusted’.

‘It remains important for the firm to continue to offer opportunities for people to develop their skills, and new competency frameworks are in place for all roles to support and encourage people to take up these opportunities’.

The report noted that long-serving staff ‘have undertaken development and progressed their careers’ – thereby offering encouragement for new starters and being a useful recruitment and staff retention tool.

Management development ‘has remained key to success’, with group and individual development sessions and coaching available.

The report cites the firm’s ‘strategy day’ as an effective mechanism for senior staff to communicate vision and objectives, providing a good understanding of the bigger picture.

Staff ‘feel trusted’ to make day-to-day decisions within their authority level, ‘informed by effective training, information and consultation’.

Blanchards Bailey was praised for its response to the pandemic, with furlough, working from home, a phased return to the office and the subsequent establishment of hybrid working practices providing flexibility.

Jane Cordner, the firm’s Head of HR and Operations, said: “We are rightly proud of this achievement and gratified to be recognised as a good employer. Any firm is only as good as its employees and we certainly have a hard working, professional and skilled team.

“However, we shall not be resting on our laurels, and will respond to recommendations in the report – such as seeking more feedback on training and development activity, measuring the impact of learning and providing more one-to-one meetings – to further develop our people skills.”

Investors in People has since 1991 been a measurement standard for people management, offering accreditation to organisations that attain and adhere to its standard.

It now operates in more than 66 countries, has made work better for more than 50,000 organisations and 11 million people worldwide and delivers services in more than 30 languages.