City law firms have a reputation for being hard places to work — worlds of bespoke suits and hideous hours. But life at Eversheds is different.
Eversheds was the first UK law firm to introduce a flexible working programme and now has 277 people working flexibly, including 12 job sharing, 45 with reduced hours each day and 32 in self-rostered teams. Partly as a result of that, 63% of staff are happy with their work-life balance.
Although the workload is high, 72% think their work is stimulating and nearly seven out of 10 staff are excited about where the company is going, with 69% claiming to “love working for this organisation”.
The average salary for a solicitor is £40,772 but 633 of the staff, not including the partners, earn more than £45,000.
With a staff of 3,786, Eversheds has its own award-winning internal communications scheme called Have Your Say, and 73% of staff feel their manager talks openly and honestly with them, while seven out of 10 say he or she expresses appreciation when they do a good job. The firm works hard to promote its vision and 88% of staff (the 15th-highest score for this across all 100 best companies) say its principles have been made clear to them, with 63% saying managers truly live its values and just 20% not believing in them.
The company spends £1.3m a year on social events such as a champagne boat trip along the Norfolk Broads, a bingo night and a visit to Disneyland Paris, as well as backing road-running, football and hockey teams.
Eversheds also does more than its bit of pro bono work — the hours spent volunteering equating to nearly £2m in fee income — including increasing legal literacy among prison inmates, women's groups, tenant associations and in schools. The 62% who feel the firm puts something back through initiatives such as this earn Eversheds a top 40 ranking for this measure among all the companies in our survey.