Diversity & Inclusion

The future is bright

We are proud of the work we have done to date and we also recognise that ensuring true diversity and inclusion is a long-term focus requiring ongoing commitment to create meaningful change. Part of this commitment is holding ourselves accountable to these goals, and implementing a work programme across a wide range of areas to support our goals.

Understanding cultural and systemic barriers to attracting, retaining and promoting talented people will be a core focus for our programme of work.

We've seen the power in harnessing the potential and energy of our people to build and maintain an environment where everyone can thrive, and we are committed to continuing this mahi.

"Our commitment involves having a combination of the compelling purpose to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace, having clear goals, and a focus on delivering meaningful and sustainable change. This is important for our people, our clients and the communities we serve."
Jo Avenell - CEO

Our diversity & inclusion goals

Gender

Achieve a partnership that is at least 40% women within 5 years.
Understand and act upon specific biases and barriers to promotion and retention.
Ensure all policies and practices reflect best practice.

Ethnicity

Achieve a workforce that is represented by at least 30% of ethnically diverse people within 5 years.
Understand and act upon specific biases and barriers to attract and retain people from a diverse range of ethnicities.
Embed Tikanga throughout the firm.

Inclusion

Achieve an inclusive environment where more than 80% of our people feel they belong and can thrive.
A culture that fosters our values: Respect, Tenacity, Excellence and Curiosity.
An effective 'speak out' culture in place.

Building a solid foundation

We fundamentally believe that building an inclusive culture will enable us to be a firm that our people, clients and wider community are proud to be associated with. Our Diversity & Inclusion strategy was refreshed on 3 March 2022.

The Board, partnership and management believe in enabling a supportive and inclusive workplace for people of any gender, cultural identity, sexual orientation or way of working. This inclusivity means everyone can be themselves at work and empowers us to continue to build and enjoy a positive workplace together.

Some recent initiatives include:

Reviewed our parental leave policy and increased our paid leave provisions and support for whānau. We also published our policy on Crayon, an online register of parental leave policies in Aotearoa;
Strengthened our relationship with TupuToa to encourage and support more student placements;
Developed our Te Ao Māori plan;
Began sharing gender and ethnicity pay gap information via the public pay gap registry MindtheGap (more on this below); and
Joined the Gender at Work Community and gained Advanced GenderTick certification in 2023 - read more on this here .
Confirmed as a Living Wage Accredited Employe r in 2024.

Indicators of our success

Paying our people fairly is important

As an accredited Living Wage Employer, we pay at least the current Living Wage rate to all staff and regular contractors. We recognise that ensuring true diversity and inclusion is a long-term focus requiring ongoing commitment to create meaningful change. Part of this commitment is holding ourselves accountable to our three strategic goals and workplan actions including pay gap reporting.

Our pay gaps*

Our firm-wide gender pay gap is 4%.
Our firm-wide Māori pay gap is 12%.
Our firm-wide Pacific Peoples pay gap is 12%.

These calculations include all our employees, across all legal and business services teams.

Closing our gaps

The workplan that sits behind our D&I strategy is key to closing the gap. By reporting our gaps, and committing to do so annually, we are taking important steps to closing these. We also need to ensure we maintain:

focus of representation in all levels across the firm (including understanding where we may have bias or barriers);
robust processes for the annual performance and salary reviews, and promotions to ensure fairness and consistency;
fairness and consistency at hiring stages (including screening, interviewing and offering); and
policies and practices which encourage greater gender and ethnic equality.

*Our gender pay gap is a percentage measure of the difference between the median full-time equivalent earnings of all women and the median full-time equivalent earnings of all men. Our ethnicity pay gaps are a percentage measure of the difference between the median full-time equivalent earnings for everyone self-identifying as a specific ethnic group and the median full-time equivalent earnings of all other employees. This data is employees of Russell McVeagh only and does not include partners. Values are as at July 2024. Gender data in this report is reported using binary female and male categories.

Our diversity & inclusion goals

40% Achieve a partnership that is at least 40% women within 5 years.
30% Achieve a workforce that is represented by at least 30% of ethnically diverse people within 5 years.
>80% Achieve an inclusive environment where more than 80% of our people feel the belong and can thrive.