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The law firm Linklaters is piloting a new development programme to help BAME staff advance their careers and aid the firm to understand and overcome any barriers to progression.
The programme has been developed in conjunction with Dr Doyin Atewologun from Delta Alpha Psi, a leadership and diversity consultancy. It will run for nine months and involves a series of workshops, coaching sessions and online resources.
The aim is to bring participants together with their line managers and partners, enabling dialogue across demographic differences.
The syllabus offers participants “the opportunity to challenge leadership practice, learn new techniques to achieve high quality feedback and identify a strategy for onward development”.
Charlie Jacobs, senior partner at Linklaters and sponsor of the programme, said: “We’re taking an approach that is possibly unusual for our sector. Talking about race or ethnicity or personal backgrounds is something that a lot of people don’t find easy to do. But we’ve seen that opening up these conversations has given us a real insight. It’s allowed us to understand where we’ve come from, what drives us and how we do certain things could hold some people back.”
The programme will run until June 2019. Fourteen lawyers and five members of Linklaters’ business teams have been selected to take part from five offices.