Impact story: disability inclusive recruitment at Irwin Mitchell

The challenge

Despite an increase of 3% to 6% in the most recent round of Solicitors Regulation Authority reporting, people declaring a disability are still hugely underrepresented in the legal sector compared to the wider workforce, where the figure stands at 16%.

This is also reflected in our data at Irwin Mitchell.

We set out to attract more disabled candidates and improve the recruitment process for those applicants, leading to better outcomes and a more inclusive experience.

Our commitment to recruiting and retaining disabled people into our workforce so it is representative of our clients and wider communities helped our Disability Confident Level 2 application and progression towards Level 3 Leader status.

The action taken

Since 2021, with our work on Disability Confident Level 2, we began to actively address our recruitment practices.

Our aim was to make these more inclusive and equitable for disabled candidates with both apparent/visible and non-apparent/non-visible disabilities.

We also looked at how well we attract disabled candidates and whether our external advertisements and language were best practice. We:

• partnered with Evenbreak, a social enterprise who focus on supporting disabled people into employment and helping employers to improve their processes.
  
  Beyond the advertising to disabled candidates, Evenbreak have helped to guide a refresh of our processes, language and advertising, as well as training opportunities for colleagues in recruitment and beyond
• hosted an all-colleague training led by Evenbreak, on the benefits of hiring disabled candidates alongside a bespoke talent acquisition session on supporting disabled candidates
• delivered specialist D&I training to senior leaders and other key stakeholders involved in recruitment
• refreshed our recruitment-specific and broader marketing campaigns, demonstrating our inclusivity and involvement in the disabled community
• reviewed our tone of voice across adverts, recruitment communications and beyond, to remove bias and increase clarity and accessibility
• updated our application form to highlight our Disability Confident level 2 status and the interview opt-in process, including a link to a new page on our website that explains the impact for candidates
• provided internal training to our talent acquisition team on the opt-in scheme and how to navigate this when shortlisting and dealing with hiring managers to ensure a fair and consistent approach
• amended the wording of our application form to focus on removing barriers (rather than reasonable adjustments) based on advice and feedback from applicants and Evenbreak
• introduced an accessibility tool on our recruitment pages to ensure candidates can access our roles and relevant information

The impact

Lateral hires have seen an increase of 62% in the number of applications from disabled candidates from the 2023 financial year (FY23) to the 2024 financial year (FY24) against a 42% overall increase.

6.2% of applications in FY24 were from candidates who declared a disability and the proportion of disabled candidates at each stage has also risen, including offers, which rose to 7%.

Early-careers figures continue to rise, with 9.5% of applicants declaring a disability in FY24, compared with 8.0% in FY23.

Our engagement rate with Evenbreak candidates increased with 29% more applications in the first eight months of 2024 compared to the last eight months of 2023.

We receive consistent positive feedback on the changes made to our application form and positive feedback from Evenbreak candidates.

Measuring the impact

We’ve measured the success of the changes we have made by looking at data on the number of applicants declaring a disability at different stages of the recruitment process.

This goes from the point of application to an offer being accepted.

Additionally, Evenbreak provide us with monthly statistics on interest and engagement with our roles, which allow us to:

• observe trends
• measure the impact of initiatives
• identify business areas experiencing a higher volume of interest

We have also looked at the percentage of people selecting ‘prefer not to say’ in response to the disability questions, to measure levels of trust and psychological safety amongst applicants at all stages of the process.

Whilst we are proud of our activity to date, we appreciate there is still progress to be made before we achieve our long term ambitions.

We remain committed to creating lasting change and a fair and equitable workplace for disabled people via our processes, culture, and values.

Next steps

We are working towards Disability Confident Level 3, with a view to achieving this by May 2025.

We are working with Business Disability Forum on our accreditation and will continue to champion disability inclusion both internally and externally.

We have set up a working group to refresh our workplace adjustments process, which includes ensuring that adjustments implemented in the recruitment process are communicated and proactively acted upon at the onboarding stage, to make the process more streamlined and ensure colleagues are supported from day one.

We are continuing to work with Evenbreak and engaging with hiring managers and colleagues so everyone within the organisation understands their responsibilities within our recruitment processes.

Our top tips

1. Work with experts – engage with specialists

The support and advice from organisation such as Evenbreak and Business Disability Forum has been invaluable for us in shaping our processes to be more disability inclusive.

2. Consult people with lived experience – 'nothing about us without us'

Our internal disability network, IM Able, has played a key role in providing honest and open feedback about our current practices.

Those involved in the network share their experiences and barriers they have faced, and provide insight into what we could do to create a more positive experience for disabled candidates and colleagues.

3. Commit long term – don't expect things to change overnight

We entered a three-year partnership with Evenbreak from the start, as we knew that change wouldn’t happen immediately.

Implementing new initiatives, reforming processes and then measuring impact takes time, so don’t be disheartened if the stats don’t improve straight away.

4. Make sure you have senior engagement

A commitment to inclusion needs to come from the top. Making changes and forming external partnerships takes time, money and resource.

Leaders need to empower colleagues in the relevant teams to invest in making these improvements, knowing that the outcomes will be better for all stakeholders involved.

5. Become a Disability Confident Employer

The Disability Confident Scheme provides a great framework for any organisation looking to develop their commitment to disability inclusion.

We’d be happy to discuss our current journey with anyone who is thinking about taking that step themselves.