Case Study
TLT LLP
"TLT’s people are our firm’s beating heart. Meeting their needs and requirements throughout their working life directly contributes to our ongoing commercial success. In an era where people expect more from their employer, any business that fails to listen to their people is frankly taking a substantial risk and will lose out on talent.
"We are proud to be a founding partner of the UK’s first family-friendly accreditation. I am confident that the framework will set a new benchmark for employers to ensure they are taking the right steps to support employee wellbeing and improve inclusivity.”
Helen Hodgkinson | Chief People Officer
About TLT LLP
Why is your organisation committed to be a family friendly workplace?
The world of work has changed, and employees expect flexibility from their employers, so it’s important businesses adopt new ways of working, or risk losing out on valuable talent and getting left behind.
At TLT, we believe having a career and a family aren’t mutually exclusive. By providing a family-friendly environment built on the feedback from our people, we are removing barriers and providing support which will allow us to retain and recruit the best people.
Point of Difference
What makes your organisation family friendly? What family inclusive programs, practices and processes does your organisation currently have in place?
TLT is a passionate supporter and advocate of helping all our people balance home and work commitments, recognising family support is not exclusive to women.
We’re proud of our fully flexible working approach – TLT world – which puts TLT among the legal industry’s most progressive firms in terms of workplace flexibility. Available from Day 1 and pledging to offer more choice, more connection and more support, flexibility is a core component of our brand and value proposition to our clients.
It supports our people from day one through a diverse range of life stages and experiences from pregnancy and parenthood to elderly care, to work at a place and time that suits them, their clients and their role. We promote TLT World experiences through our internal and external communications recognising the importance of role modelling in creating greater flexibility for all.
We offer generous and supportive family leave benefits including 16 weeks full pay and 16 weeks half pay for maternity, adoption and shared parental leave and 4 weeks full pay for paternity/non-birthing parent leave. We also offer wrap around support for expectant parents including fully paid ‘ramping down’ and ‘ramping up’ periods to reduce workload in the transition into parenthood and on their immediate return to work.
To provide parents and carers with peace of mind, we offer comprehensive medical cover for neurodiversity screening and assessments for dependents and access to discounted care packages. For those who need extra support, we go beyond our statutory parental leave provisions to offer paid leave for hospital appointments for parents of disabled children.
We place inclusion at the core of our leadership behaviours and passionate about championing change across our sector and beyond. In 2024, we joined the Flexible & Family Friendly Working All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) as sponsor, as part of our commitment to driving up the standards in workplace practices.
We’re always listening to our people and continuously adapting to their needs and requirements to ensure we are providing colleagues with the tools and support to succeed.
How
How have the above impacted your workplace culture and productivity? How have your people responded?
TLT’s switch towards a more flexible way of working has gone alongside the firm’s continuing growth, strong financial performance and emergence as a power player in the UK’s legal scene – a powerful statement that flexible working is complementary to productivity and culture.
In May 2024, TLT World won an award at the Legal Cheek Awards and was a significant contributor to the firm winning law firm of the year three years in a row at The Lawyer Awards 2021, the British Legal Awards 2022 and the Legal Business Awards in 2023.
Furthermore, in June 2024, TLT was named in the Times Top 50 for gender equality, with our family friendly support as an integral to our listing and confirming TLT as a top player when it comes to supporting working parents.
TLT world has also been well received internally. In our most recent Engagement Survey, 86% of our people claimed they were proud to work at TLT and flexibility routinely comes top three in what colleagues most value about working for our firm.
Flexibility gives us a competitive advantage in the recruitment market. In our latest colleague engagement survey, a new hire told us: “The firm “walks the walk on [flexibility]” and I admire that this is sold as a positive in the market”
Embedding flexibility has also contributed to improving the diversity of our organisation. Its implementation has gone alongside the firm achieving its female partner target of 33% two years ahead of schedule and given us confidence to target 50% by 2029.
Outcomes
What has your organisation learned as it has become more inclusive of families? What business benefits can you link to being a family friendly workplace?
We have learned that being a family-friendly workplace not only sits alongside strong performance but actively delivers it.
It has helped us attract and retain the best people, including from new geographic talent pools, as well as empowering our people to be at their best, ensuring we can continue to build on our momentum, deliver for clients and expand the firm’s business.
We also understand that there is no ‘one-size-fits all’ solution for helping working families. We have learnt to build flexibility into our approach and prioritised an improved understanding of individual needs.
Employee Story
Joe joined TLT in May 2024 as a partner in the future energy and real estate team.
As a first-time partner in a law firm, Joe’s first six months at TLT were spent learning a new role, overseeing associates and clients, which required longer working hours and, at times, demanding workdays.
Joe’s father-in-law has vascular dementia, and as his condition has progressed, Joe has had to juggle his home life with two young children, a demanding job, and supporting his wife through helping with the increasing caring responsibilities for his father-in-law and her own career.
Despite support from friends and family, Joe felt overwhelmed with competing demands. This led to discussions with his line manager about stepping down from partner level to fulfil his caring responsibilities.
TLT’s flexible working policy – TLT World – acknowledges that everyone’s work and home life are different. In line with the policy. Joe was offered the possibility of taking a part-time partner role, allowing him more flexibility in his working week to shape it around his caring responsibilities, without impacting his professional development. Flexible working patterns at such a high-level is not commonplace in the legal sector, but reflects TLT’s progressive approach and commitment to placing people at the heart of its operations.
This has enabled Joe to log in later, finish earlier, and visit his father-in-law for a few hours when he needs additional support during the day. Working more flexibly has also meant that he can share the caring responsibilities – for his father-in-law and his children – with his wife, so she may also continue to pursue her career ambitions.
“Having to juggle a busy and stressful workload on a full-time basis with an emotionally difficult time at home, was uniquely challenging. I’m hugely grateful for the support I’ve been provided by TLT, which has enabled me to balance my responsibilities at home and support my wife without it impacting my own professional development. There are not many employers out there who would do that. Without this valuable support, it would have been exceptionally difficult for me to carry on as I had.”
