Published 21st November 2019
As you may have seen from our endless social media posts on this topic, we were absolutely delighted to receive multiple awards this ‘awards season’. Both the Yorkshire Legal Awards and the Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business Awards were for our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
At the YLA awards, the judges explained:
“In the diversity and inclusion category, this firm was chosen because it achieved a lot in a short space of time. It shows a clear passion to promote and celebrate diversity on a local and national level.”
We then, less than a month later won the Social Mobility award at the Yorkshire Post Excellence in business awards. It was very rewarding to know that people are acknowledging our efforts across sectors. The Judges’ comments on why we won this award were:
“Thrive: far more than a law firm. Thrive are dedicated to ensuring mental health needs are met on a national basis and across all sectors. It’s achieved a huge amount in its short time in business and has brought dynamic and inspirational leadership to a crucial social issue in modern life.”
We are proud of our hard work championing these important issues across all sectors has already been recognised at such an early stage of our journey, through receiving both of these prestigious awards.
It is essential, now more than ever, that workplaces ensure they are promoting diversity in all forms with an aim to ensure all employees can thrive in the workplace as opposed to just ticking a box. It just goes to show that, perhaps especially in the legal sector, employers should practice what they preach and simply having a Diversity and Inclusion policy is not good enough.
When thinking about how diverse your company is, it isn’t just a question of whether you have a fair ratio of men and women but also whether your company promotes equal opportunities for all. This is both men and women from all different backgrounds, countries, races, sexualities, religions etc. and regardless of any disabilities including mental health issues. You need to make sure you are celebrating the individuality of your employees; everyone’s experience means that they will have something new and exciting to bring to the table and you should recognise the value of this in your workforce.
Here at Thrive, we ensure our employees know they are appreciated. We always recognise any beliefs, religious holidays or occasions that our employees celebrate and give them a chance to share this with each other and our audience. You can read our marketing Apprentice, Khaleeqa’s Ramadan in the Workplace blog here.
We also recognise all mental health awareness days and promote these on social media to make sure these occasions aren’t being missed and actively support mental health charities across the UK. We have an online community and Thriving Minds events where we encourage people to share their best practises in respect of mental health in the workplace at our seminars and annual conference.
We connect, inspire and empower women across the region across all sector at our Thrive Women Events and through our online community.
We support our employees’ wellbeing needs by offering flexible and smart working and we have trialled a four day week, with a view to making it an annual Summer arrangement which was an initiative suggested by the team.
We believe that mental health and wellbeing is just as important as physical health. This is reflected in our campaign to ensure Mental Health Risk Assessments are mandatory in all workplaces. If you would like to take this step forward for a more diverse workplace and end the stigma surrounding mental health, click to get involved. to sign our #OneMind Campaign.
We cannot put into words how thrilled we are to have won these awards, after only launching Thrive law last year! We are so grateful to those who nominated and supported us, and we promise that we won’t stop here; we’ll keep striving to ensure equality is high on the agenda of all businesses in the UK, to eliminate workplace discrimination.
