Health and Wellbeing

The mental wellbeing of our colleagues is crucial to our wellbeing as a business and throughout the year we undertake campaigns to coincide with national and global campaigns such as Mental Health Awareness Week and World Mental Health Day to raise awareness among our colleagues of the support available to them.

The purpose of these campaigns is to normalise conversations about mental health and give people the confidence to speak up if they are in need or if they see others they think might not be coping. We deliver training, share resources, and publish blogs during these campaigns to ensure we provide everyone the opportunity to access the different materials available.

Our Mental Health First Aiders act as a point of contact and reassurance, to listen non-judgementally, provide support and information and encourage appropriate professional and/or other help and support.

We welcome applications from candidates with visible and non-visible disabilities, long-term health conditions, and who are neurodivergent, as well as those with caring responsibilities. 

We are committed to creating an inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone feels valued, supported, and able to thrive. We take a proactive approach to removing barriers, including offering workplace adjustments, and ensuring our recruitment processes and workplace practices are accessible. We encourage open conversations about support and adjustments, both during recruitment and throughout your career with us, including flexible working, alternative assessment formats, assistive technology, tailored workplace support, etc.

At DWF, we are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader, reflecting our commitment to inclusive practices and supporting colleagues to develop, progress and succeed.

We offer a range of support for colleagues, including a dedicated Executive Sponsored Affinity Networks for Disability, Neurodivergence and Carers, providing a supportive environment to connect, access support and raise awareness. Our suite of people policies includes Carers Leave, Dependants Leave, Flexible Working, Workplace Adjustments, Sickness Absence, and Menopause policies.

We value the contributions of all our colleagues and are committed to supporting one another to successfully manage each of our careers and personal responsibilities. It’s important to our mental wellbeing to pursue both professional and personal interests, sometimes  finding a balance can be hard and so we welcome flexible working to assist wherever we can.

Our policies recognise that parenthood brings additional responsibilities and we support colleagues fully during this period.  We are passionate about ensuring colleagues needs are met before, during as well as upon their return from leave related to our family friendly policies.

Likewise, we encourage an open dialogue with colleagues where they may have wider caring responsibilities or other interests that need to be balanced with work.

We are an agile working business. This means we welcome a blended mix of home, office and agile working, where possible. We encourage colleagues to discuss working practices with their line manager to determine what level of office and agile working would benefit their role.

As a commitment to reducing stress in the workplace, we signed up to the Mindful Business Charter in 2019, an initiative developed by Barclays, Pinsent Masons, and Addleshaw Goddard to encourage businesses and their legal services provides to reach a shared agenda for supporting mental health and wellbeing.

The charter challenges us to ensure our way of working reduces or eliminates the stress triggers commonly attributed to working in professional services and sets out four key  principles to aspire towards, each with ideas that can be easily put into practice to help reduce stress:

1. Openness and respect – building trust and communication
2. Smart meetings and e-mails – adhering to guidance to plan meetings that are respectful of everyone’s time and to remove the stress from e-mails
3. Respecting rest periods – consideration given to the need to ‘switch off’ when on holiday or away from work
4. Mindful delegation – implementing a best practice approach to collaboration, instruction, and delegation