Employee wellbeing in light of the SRA updated guidance

At the beginning of May this year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) issued updated guidance for law firms on health and wellbeing in the workplace, which is intended to help firms understand what these new rules mean for them. Emma Sell, chief operating officer at Fox and Partners, highlights the main changes and offers practical tips.

The SRA has removed the requirement for solicitors (and other members of staff) to challenge any unfair treatment they witness and placed the requirement squarely on the shoulders of firms and their senior managers, expecting them to build a working culture in which more junior staff feel able to complain without fear of recrimination.

Failure to provide a safe and supportive working environment can have a significant effect on employees’ physical and mental health, which in turn can cause them to make mistakes in their work, impacting the firm and its clients.

As the onus has now shifted towards senior managers to ensure a happy and healthy workforce, it is imperative that they lead by example and exhibit the good behaviours expected of everyone else, and that a positive culture is maintained.

A good starting point is to implement a Wellbeing Policy which has the buy-in of senior management and shows a commitment to protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of staff. It is also important to recognise that wellbeing can be affected by issues unrelated to the workplace, but that these can adversely affect staff at work and therefore, the appropriate support should be provided on a confidential basis, regardless of its source.

It should be the responsibility of all senior managers to provide support to staff.  They should promote a culture of open communication and make themselves available at all times. Staff should feel confident that if they are raising any concerns about their work or working environment, that these will be listened to and addressed.  In fact, the SRA has said that they are likely to take action against a firm where complaints have not been dealt with “in a prompt and fair manner”.

Regularly monitoring working hours, overtime and holiday usage is important to ensure staff are not overworked and that work is being allocated accurately. Managers should be agile if work needs to be redistributed to reduce the risk of overworking certain employees, and effectively plan and provide feedback on performance, rather than waiting until annual appraisals, which will keep the channels of communication open and help promote a transparent and inclusive culture.  Poor performance can be an indicator that an employee’s wellbeing is suffering and with most firms now operating on a hybrid basis it has naturally become harder for managers to spot these signs without regular contact and check-ins. The SRA are concerned with firms whose working environment risks leading to mistakes and poor outcomes for clients, or to ethical concerns.

All firms should have bullying, harassment, discrimination and victimisation policies in place, and disciplinary procedures for breaches of these policies.  Managers should be prepared to speak up if they witness any unfair treatment of an individual and to intervene immediately to stop it.  The SRA expects managers to take action as soon as possible by either speaking to the perpetrator of the unfair behaviour directly, or by raising it with another manager or the firm’s compliance officers for legal practice (COLP) (promptly and fairly). Depending on the behaviour, managers should also consider whether it is appropriate to report the incident to the SRA.

The SRA has made it clear that senior managers have responsibility for a firm’s culture and systems and can be held responsible for a firm’s failures in this regard.  It seems that one-off complaints are unlikely to cause the SRA to take action, but patterns of complaints or complaints raised over time involving a number of staff where inadequate or no action is taken, or the firm’s culture has prevented the complaints from being raised sooner will almost certainly warrant action.

It is incumbent upon all senior managers to create and maintain a healthy and open working environment where staff feel — and are — valued and supported.