Lehman Brothers
Raise awareness with all stakeholders:
Working with your supply chain
In the main the City of London does not have a good reputation on diversity. Lehman's are keen to establish themselves as leaders in the financial services sector and for some years have been at the forefront on diversity good practice. With age laws due to come into force in October 2006, Lehman's joined the EFA in 2004 to ensure that they were fully prepared.
Preparation for age laws has been led by Fleur Bothwick their head of diversity and has included raising awareness with HR policy colleagues, briefing of the senior team and line managers and developing age profiling information.
In addition, Fleur felt it vital that Lehman's stressed the importance of age, as an element of their joined up approach to diversity, with other stakeholders. As a result, Lehman's started talking to suppliers - in particular the executive search and recruitment agencies. Lehman's was aware that they could put themselves at risk if these suppliers were not fully briefed on the impact of age laws and brought up to speed on the business's new expectations around age neutral practice.
To start this process, Lehman's suggested the EFA meet and brief one of their preferred suppliers. In addition, Lehman's offered to host an event at which both city colleagues and other suppliers were present. These actions have ensured that both internal and external awareness of age issues has been raised rapidly. The involvement of external suppliers in discussions on delivering age neutrality in recruitment has triggered a wide-ranging debate on the criteria the city uses in selection and on the potential bias of the traditional executive search process.
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Raise awareness with all stakeholders:
Working with your supply chain
In the main the City of London does not have a good reputation on diversity. Lehman's are keen to establish themselves as leaders in the financial services sector and for some years have been at the forefront on diversity good practice. With age laws due to come into force in October 2006, Lehman's joined the EFA in 2004 to ensure that they were fully prepared.
Preparation for age laws has been led by Fleur Bothwick their head of diversity and has included raising awareness with HR policy colleagues, briefing of the senior team and line managers and developing age profiling information.
In addition, Fleur felt it vital that Lehman's stressed the importance of age, as an element of their joined up approach to diversity, with other stakeholders. As a result, Lehman's started talking to suppliers - in particular the executive search and recruitment agencies. Lehman's was aware that they could put themselves at risk if these suppliers were not fully briefed on the impact of age laws and brought up to speed on the business's new expectations around age neutral practice.
To start this process, Lehman's suggested the EFA meet and brief one of their preferred suppliers. In addition, Lehman's offered to host an event at which both city colleagues and other suppliers were present. These actions have ensured that both internal and external awareness of age issues has been raised rapidly. The involvement of external suppliers in discussions on delivering age neutrality in recruitment has triggered a wide-ranging debate on the criteria the city uses in selection and on the potential bias of the traditional executive search process.
Click icon to download a printable version of the case study
download pdf
