BURGES SALMON LLP

ENABLED CANDIDATE SCHEME

Burges Salmon LLP, an award-winning independent UK law firm, launched an Enabled Candidate Scheme employment programme in 2023.

Background to the Enabled Candidate Scheme

Aimed at candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions who have struggled to access meaningful employment, the Enabled Candidate Scheme employment programme re-engineers roles at Burges Salmon to make them accessible for individuals who may only want or be able to work one or two days a week.

We partnered with Send2Work, a community-focussed recruitment agency supporting neurodiverse and disabled candidates into sustainable employment. The aim of the scheme was to pilot a new recruitment, induction and integration process to employ a candidate through a supportive, people-focussed scheme.

The additional benefits of the scheme included continuous improvement in our normal recruitment processes and induction team support for new disabled or neurodiverse employees. Additionally, it allowed us to fulfil resource gaps that did not necessarily require a full-time employee to fulfil. Also, it provided the candidate with the opportunity to start their career, develop their confidence and build their skills and knowledge.

Approach to the scheme

In collaboration with Send2Work, we identified a role within our Corporate Responsibility team as an administrator supporting on our community engagement and volunteering programme. This role was designed on the advice of Send2Work as a four-hour per week role (previously our lowest hours roles were around three days a week). This sparked the challenge of how we adapt our induction process that normally requires four full days to complete and then integrate into starting on workload within the parameters of a four-hour working week.  

We pulled together a project team with representatives from across our people team functions, (including Resourcing, Onboarding, Induction and Advisory) to design and implement a bespoke recruitment, induction and integration programme. We applied sufficient resource to the changing processes to ensure that we could provide the candidate with a good-quality programme.

The Resourcing and Onboarding team designed the job description appropriate for the working hours, reinvented the recruitment process to allow the offer to be submitted within days of meeting the candidate and instigated a short two-week turn-around for the induction to ensure that we kept the candidate in contact.

The candidate was provided to us by Send2Work and we met with them at a ‘discovery session’, to go through with the perspective line manager and team manager what the job role is, what working at Burges Salmon is like and how we would start induction. Upon accepting the offer, we launched our onboarding process with the candidate having weekly meetings leading up to their start date to meet with key support teams, such as learning tech for identifying his technological ability, and advisory to understand the adjustments and people support we can provide. This was also a chance for the candidate to regularly familiarise themselves with the working environment and people they were going to be working with initially, building confidence for the candidate in the process of starting employment.

Our Learning Technology team built a bespoke induction consisting of four two-hour sessions covering the basics of our technology and targeted training for systems and tools they will use regularly in their role.

The Advisory team regularly checked in with the candidate to answer any questions about starting and working at the firm, offering adjustments if required and being a friendly face in the office.

Impact of the scheme

We piloted this scheme in July 2023, starting the candidate on a four hours a week contract. With confidence and time, they now currently work an 18 hour a week role. This has built confidence in other departments to take on smaller part-time roles and shows how we can offer smooth integration into the our teams regardless of working patterns.

Following a six-month review of the scheme in January 2024, we surveyed our candidate to test our processes and understand where they would like to see their role progress.

Feedback from the candidate on their onboarding and integration: “The onboarding process was good. It offered a great insight into Burges Salmon and its culture and environment, and introduced the Corporate Responsibility side of the business which was previously an unknown field for me. I received warm welcomes which helped my anxieties and made the process less daunting for me.”

The candidate stated that they were ‘very satisfied’ with their job role and tasks and assessed their confidence in using the technology and Microsoft applications as 9/10.

Our Head of Corporate Responsibility commented: “Spearheading the Enabled Candidate Scheme has been incredibly rewarding. Seeing an individual who hasn’t been able to access meaningful employment due to a disability or neurodivergence successfully transition into a role at the firm is wonderful. The programme is also a great example of collaboration, with multiple teams across the business challenging what jobs should look like and how we can reengineer the way we offer roles to support people with different lived experiences.”

Following the successful pilot scheme, we are aiming to expand this scheme in 2024 to two permanent roles across the firm’s business service departments.