Page 22 - Transformation Report.indd

7. Professional

Development

With a growing number of young candidate attorneys in the Group
and with the fast-tracking of in particular black and black female
candidates, firms need to have strategies in place to develop
and retain professionals and ensure that their investment in such
candidates is not lost. A Group priority has been the fostering of
career pathing at member firms to allow young professionals to
Member firms mature to senior positions in the firm, with guidance, best practices
and mentorship by Group regional directors being conducive to
have introduced greater cognisance of the importance of developing staff. Results
have included mentorship programmes, individual development
professional plans, performance assessment frameworks and a focus on soft skills
training to assist professionals to grow and face the challenges of
development, their professional careers.

career pathing Candidate attorneys also gain access to centralised support,
knowledge centres, online legal resources, and extensive softs skills
and mentorship training available to staff, providing additional value usually only
available outside the Group at a large law firm.
programmes

to ensure the 8. Skills Development

retention of black

and female 8.1 Firm skills development
Investing in skills development and staff training is the hallmark of a
professionals successful law firm. Skills development is also unquestionably relevant
to transformation and often linked to transformation successes,
particularly in relation to accelerated development initiatives.
Group firms accordingly actively invest in training and positioning
themselves as training firms and have partnered with SucceedGroup
Online Academy to avail an encompassing range of softs skills,
computer literacy, life skills and compliance courses to staff across
the Group.

In 2016, Group firms spent in excess of R3 million on the skills
development of black staff members at their firms and nearly R3.4
million on the skills development of female staff members of all
races. In 2017, this number increased to over R4 million on the skills
development of black staff members and nearly R4.25 million on the
skills development of female staff members of all races, evidencing
the mounting investment in training by firms to position themselves
as training firms.

The Group has also partnered with Corporate Strategy Group,
specialist skills development consultants, to assist Group firms to
annually submit their required Workplace Skills Plans and Annual
Training Report.

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