Mental Health Awareness at Ellis Jones

Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion

Our culture at Ellis Jones promotes connection, positivity and encourages being professional with personality. We are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse working environment where our staff feel happy and supported. As a firm, we recognise the importance of celebrating and respecting what makes our people unique, be it age, gender, religion, belief, ethnicity, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, or education. We feel that everyone should be able to celebrate their differences within a positive, safe, and nurturing environment and we prioritise equality and inclusion for all.

Gender balance

We continue to improve gender balance across our offices and we are proud to have 9 female Partners and 14 male Partners, with the majority of our staff being women. Working flexibility is accommodated and encouraged at Ellis Jones, with hybrid working being available for our staff.

LGBT+ support

We recognise that everyone is unique and we encourage our people to be themselves and advocate for each other. We have a team of specialist LGBT+ lawyers who offer legal advice and guidance for those in the LGBT+ community. This year, we are supporting Bourne Free Pride and Space Youth Project as charities offering services for the LGBT+ community and hosting social events.

Disability awareness

We promote education and understanding of mental and physical health conditions by conducting training such as MIND and Lawcare. We have support strategies as part of our staff benefits packages and ensure these are well understood and utilised by our staff who need support.

Providing growth and development opportunities

As part of our “put people first” ethos, our firm provides frameworks and tools to promote a sense of community and connection amongst staff, including our mentoring programme, competencies, lunch & learn sessions and staff initiatives.

As part of our mentoring programme, there is the opportunity to be paired up with a more senior lawyer in a different team to provide support and guidance for career development and future aspirations. This programme cultivates connection, allowing senior team members to support and nurture junior team members. Our staff are encouraged to use the motivational, employee engagement tool, Mojo which enables our people to understand what motivates them and track their motivation whilst setting career goals. We also regularly host lunch and learn sessions, providing a relaxed environment for training and education on wellbeing practices, career focused skills and legal topics.

Fun staff initiatives

There are also the following initiatives available to keep our offices connected, celebrate our staff achievements and promote wellbeing.

• Wellness Wednesday newsletters are sent out fortnightly, providing a focus on a wellbeing topic.
• Staff charity fundraising challenges are shared firmwide, such as, running challenges.
• Ellis Jones Day breakfast is provided on the last working day of each month for all staff to enjoy.
• Movers & Shakers monthly newsletters are sent to staff on Ellis Jones Day which includes staff news, upcoming activities to get involved with, social events news and a celebration of our successes from the previous month.
• Star of the Month announcements are mentioned in Movers & Shakers newsletters to celebrate an employee nominated by their peers for displaying our core values. The winner can select either a £50 voucher or an extra day of holiday as their prize.
• We draw an Ellis Jones Wish Winner several times a year at our summer social event, annual general meeting and Christmas party. Team members can submit a wish for an activity that they would love to do, such as, taking a family trip or joining a cooking class. The winner’s name is then pulled from a tombola and the lucky person can claim their wish.

Creating opportunities to connect

We hold social events through out the year to build connections between our offices, departments and teams within a fun setting. Our firm wide sporting activities are available to all, including our EJ Volleyball Club and the EJ Paddleboarding Club. We get together as a whole firm several times throughout the year with an annual general meeting, a summer party and a Christmas party. Teams are also encouraged to get together for department socials throughout the year.

We strive to create a positive working environment for all and contribute to the wellbeing of our people.