Castrén & Snellman Celebrates European Diversity Month

Diversity relates to all four of our values: the Spark, Respect, Courage and Responsibility. The panellists found Courage to be the value most connected with diversity. A diverse work community requires courage to be oneself as well as courage to step in when faced with inappropriate behaviour.

In addition to our values, another important guide for our work for diversity is Castrén & Snellman’s strategic goal of becoming the best workplace in the legal sector. The panellists agreed that different and varied views increase the wellbeing of the work community, which is in turn reflected in our client work.

Equality survey highlights the need to discuss diversity

We conduct regular equality surveys internally to monitor how well we have succeeded in our diversity work. In the latest survey early this year, 80% of the respondents somewhat or fully agreed that our work community supports employees expressing their membership in various minorities if they wish.

Correspondingly, a fifth of respondents felt that this is not the case.

The comments indicated that, though people felt there was no obstacle to expressing a minority identity at the workplace, the heteronormativity of the field in general, for example, does not encourage such expression.

What have we done so far?

We launched our diversity efforts in 2020. Through discussions with our personnel, we identified aspects of diversity that were of particular importance to us. With these as our starting point, we planned and executed a series of diversity actions.

We will continue striving for a more diverse workplace by hosting events and providing training. We also want to expand our collaboration with schools to make the legal world more diverse in the future.