Photo by Graydon
As Cincinnati’s oldest law firm, Graydon is dedicated to providing clients with top-notch legal services in a wide variety of areas—connecting with clients, colleagues, and their community. Understanding that the world is constantly changing, Graydon aims to be a leader in innovation—and this includes prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. While gender disparities in leadership and attrition are industry-wide challenges, the firm is committed to addressing them head-on.
Before joining an Ellequate community cohort, they knew that women were leaving as they approached more senior roles, yet had limited data to understand the root cause of the talent loss. Graydon was committed to reconceptualizing their company’s culture and was ready to partner with Ellequate.
Getting Started With Ellequate
Working with Graydon’s Chief People Officer, Shelby Thompson, Ellequate helped map out the firm's plan to establish itself as a place where all employees—regardless of gender or race—have equal opportunities in career progression and advancement. Along with one of the firm’s Partners, Thompson joined Ellequate’s first leadership cohort in the summer of 2018.
With Ellequate’s guidance, the Graydon team conducted a full policy audit, reevaluating hiring and advancement practices. Acknowledging the firm’s homogenous leadership, Graydon was able to go deep, examining the systemic barriers to advancement facing women, people of color, and others with marginalized identities within the firm.
According to Thompson, Graydon’s work with Ellequate "has given me the courage to speak more outwardly about gender equity when we're talking about advancement and performance reviews. This is important to us, and we're going to continue to pursue it."
Taking Action, Getting Results
After revising their policies and practices and setting benchmarks and goals, Graydon instituted processes to ensure women are included in all levels of decision-making. The company’s HR leadership continues to spearhead this important work—alongside other Ellequate certified employers. Since becoming certified in workplace equity, Graydon has made the following significant changes with plans to continue their journey:
A parental leave policy was set in place for all parents with ongoing progress towards implementing equitable policies for all caregivers. This has resulted in greater retention among parents, particularly mothers. In fact, women are now consistently returning to Graydon after having children, a challenge the firm previously struggled with prior to working with Ellequate.
The firm quickly began to see more diversity in their candidate pools. With the executive leadership team making a noticeable effort to address diversity, equity, and inclusion, there has been a greater desire to break from the status quo and seek broader sets of candidates for hiring and promotion.
Candidates have noticed Graydon’s efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion. Ellequate certification has become a part of the firm’s recruitment strategy. Graydon successfully doubled the percentage of minorities working at the firm in 2019 and in 2020 increased representation of women in key leadership roles by 12%. The leadership team is now leveraging what they’ve learned to advance racial and gender equity further within the organization.
The leadership team’s shift in mindset allowed them to demonstrate more compassion, adopting policies to support caregivers disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Graydon plans to conduct a pay equity audit in the next phase of their work.
The Roadmap To Elevating Equity
Graydon’s work continues, having made great strides in creating a more equitable workplace. Their partnership with Ellequate has placed them at the forefront of this work, giving them a competitive edge in recruiting and retaining top talent.
According to Thompson, the firm’s Chief People Officer, “Ellequate gave us a new lens to examine the business case for gender equity and a community of leaders to collaborate with. Their organizational assessment prompted us to review our policies and practices—ultimately leading to the implementation of a back-up child and adult care benefit for all employees, a significantly enhanced paid parental leave policy, and a notable increase in women in key leadership roles. Ellequate is driving important change in the dialogue around gender equity.”
For Graydon, this is just one of the steps the law firm is taking to foster a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace–they believe there’s still more work to be done.
Are you ready to boost your DEI efforts with a data-driven and people-centered strategy? Learn how to become an Ellequate member.
