Tim:   Quite often when new Managing Partners come into a firm, there is a lot of change in business services. Did you know that would be the case?

James:   I knew some things needed to happen and that others might happen in time.

As a leadership team, we spent much of 2022 engaging with the business and our clients to develop our five-year strategy which gave us a crystal clear purpose, vision and values. That meant, coming into the role, I was able to hit the ground running implementing the ambitious growth strategy we had all signed up to.  A key part of our strategy was getting the right people in the right places doing the right things. We had – and still do have – fantastic people in our business services group, but there was an obvious gap in that we did not have a Director of People in place. Happily, Emma joined us a matter of weeks before I started my new role.

Tim:   So, what were your priorities when you joined, Emma?

Emma:   When I came in, there were some things the people team were exceptionally good at – for example policies and governance. However, what was missing was a strong strategic direction and ensuring the team was well-aligned to our five-year strategy. I wanted to know what was working and what wasn’t, what people thought we should do and what their current priorities were. I think I spoke to 77 senior people in the firm as well as my own team in the first few weeks.

By week eight, James asked me to bring our people strategy forward and, because of the insights I’d already gained, we were able to fast track the people plan, get Board approval and provide the business with a roadmap which aligned with the wider business strategy.

Alongside that, there were a couple of initiatives we already had underway. One was implementing a new HR system, which as anyone who has onboarded one before knows, can be a tricky and time-consuming process. However, it was necessary and the right thing for us to do. The second initiative was the introduction of our competency framework to give everyone a clear career path.

Tim:   What other positions did you have to fill?

James:   The bit I thought we could wait on was hiring a COO. Having recruited Emma, we had a strong director group covering the key areas of finance, people, technology and marketing. However, a curveball came up when one of our directors decided to relocate to sunnier climes, which created a gap.

At this stage we reached out to Totum for advice. Tim, you suggested I speak to Alastair Mitchell, who was at Pinsent Masons at the time, but had decided to retire. He came in, met everyone and gave me a two-page summary of what he thought we needed – which was perfect for me. That led to him working on a consultancy basis for us before joining us permanently last year and latterly taking on the role of COO.

Our strategy is all about growth, and that means delivering our services as efficiently and effectively as possible. We’re at a tricky stage in our growth journey where we’re big enough to require more infrastructure but also need to bring our people with us to understand why we need to make changes and put more rigour and process in place as we grow.  We’re working out what that means for our business services function to continue to meet the demands of our business, but for example, another recent new hire for us was a full time Director of Risk and Compliance.

The journey we’ve been on over the past 18 months has been a challenging one and we’ve implemented a huge amount of change very quickly, which has been really positive on the whole. There is still a lot to do, but we have good people in our business services departments with clear priorities. We are well set for the next stage of our strategy, and I feel more confident about having the right people in the right places. It makes my life easier but also makes us a stronger business.

Tim:   How do you measure the impact of this investment in business services?

James:   Our strategy is underpinned by five strategic objectives with goals and metrics against each and these are driven out of our business services functions. We review and monitor progress on a quarterly basis.  It is hard to measure impact purely in data but it’s something we’re working on, and I strongly believe that if you get great people working in these areas, then ultimately you will be more efficient and effective as a business.

Emma:   We’ve got much smarter at our lateral hire process, particularly in our legal teams. We’ve been able to attract higher quality candidates more recently.

One of my new objectives is to look at our ROI for those strategic hires. I’ll be sitting down with our recent salary partner hires to go through what this might look like. For example, we might look at the business plan they brought with them as part of the recruitment process and see what they’ve managed to achieve so far.

It’s not really part of the appraisal process, it’s more about what they thought they would achieve here and whether they’ve been able to deliver. How could we have made it easier for them to get up and running?

Tim:   You’ve talked about taking people with you – how do you do that?

James:   I think we’ve learned a lot over the past 18 months about the pace of change and how much people can take at any one time to fully engage and embrace those changes. We appointed an Internal Comms Manager in 2023 and now have more frequent firmwide comms using multiple channels and more feedback mechanisms, including a revised employee engagement survey, a virtual AGM, our impact awards, DEI groups and roundtable lunches with me and the partners, so we are continually getting feedback and making changes where we need to in response to that feedback.

Emma:   When it comes to bringing people with you, there is a role for key leadership positions at every level. There is also a big role for lateral hires, who perhaps have seen some of the things we’re trying to do work in other firms and can act as real advocates for that change.

Tim:   How is the growth journey progressing?

James:   We’re over halfway through our five year plan. We were turning over roughly £40 million when we started, and with a fair wind, we’ll get to £55 million this year. That’s not transformational, but a lot of what we’ve done over the past couple of years has been to help lay the foundations for our future growth.

The ambition remains there. A realistic target is £80 million. At that scale, we will be a more stable business financially and be able to invest more in our people and technology. We are confident in our ability to achieve this organically but recognise that the timing can be accelerated by merger or acquisition activity. The legal landscape is changing dramatically and with that comes challenges but also great opportunity and with a solid team in place, I’m looking forward to what the next few years have in store.

If you have any questions or would like to chat further about the content covered, get in touch with  tim.skipper@totumpartners.com