Caring for our people and our communities

We recognise the importance of helping our colleagues, clients and the communities in which we operate in thrive. Working together without hierarchy and with high levels of communication and engagement supports and enhances our unique collegiate culture.

Knights’ culture is simple. We support our people while giving them freedom. We focus on what people contribute; we reward people who deliver, we help each other, and we are honest.

We’re proud of this approach and believe it makes us a stronger and happier business. We’ll be doing more to empower our colleagues and build on the Group’s employee net promoter score of +20. Our colleagues are key to providing great client service, as proved by our strong client net promoter score of +64.

Knights’ approach means we are increasingly diverse. We are proud that the percentage of female Partners remains in the top 10 per cent of the industry, and that we benefit from the talent of a wide range of ethnicities, religious backgrounds and sexual orientations.

Working life at Knights centres on creating a supportive environment that puts our professionals first and allows them to grow, set and realise their own ambitions. This makes us stand out. At Knights, there are no glass ceilings or limits on how our people can progress. Our people are in control of their own careers.

Health and wellbeing

Focusing on the wellbeing of colleagues, and ensuring they are supported, happy and healthy, is paramount to us. Our ‘one team’ collaborative culture is something of which we are immensely proud.

We maintain a focus on mental health awareness and also provide all colleagues with access to Health Assured – a health and wellbeing platform that provides guidance, support and resources to help colleagues in any circumstance.

During Mental Health Awareness Week, we run a series of awareness articles on our intranet and actively signpost the resources available on the Health Assured platform.

During the year, we invested in training for our entire HR team to become mental health first aiders.

Learning and personal development

Investing in the growth of our people is important to the business. Excluding our 74 trainee solicitors and five apprentices who are enrolled in formal training programmes, our colleagues have received formal training across areas ranging from technical and business skills to health and wellbeing.

Salaries and promotions

Alongside our recent work to properly price the value that we deliver to clients, we conducted a full salary review which has enabled us to deliver positive uplifts to colleagues across the Group. We are confident that the salaries we offer, at all levels, are competitive. We have also made 143 promotions during the year, reflecting how we continue to nurture and develop our talent and recognise high performance.

Flexibility

We believe we are stronger, more creative and more productive when we are with our colleagues. We also coach and learn more effectively. While the hybrid working model served a purpose during the COVID pandemic and accelerated the adoption of some positive new ways of working and communicating, we thrive at Knights when we are together. Accordingly, we took an early decision to return to office-based working while continuing to support and promote a balance between work and personal life to meet individual needs. 20 per cent of colleagues work part-time, including 19 per cent of Partners.

Offices

Our offices continue to be central to everything we do and are fundamental in supporting learning and development, collaborative working and building inclusive teams. That is why we continue to invest in Grade A office space that offers a modern working environment and capacity for future growth.

Part of creating a healthy working environment is enabling our colleagues to make an impact beyond the business. It helps them to feel good, build relationships outside the business, and contribute to the communities in which we operate.

We believe those who help others are more engaged and better connected within the communities they serve as part of their work for the business.

This is why Knights’ 4 Our Community (4OC) programme is so important. It encourages colleagues to use four working hours per month to give back to their local communities.

Each month, Knights’ colleagues do amazing things in their communities. Giving our colleagues time to volunteer, fundraise and support the causes they care about is rewarding for them – and beneficial to the communities we are part of.

4OC is our community volunteering framework. It gives Knights’ colleagues four working hours a month to support a cause that is important to them – supporting charities and community projects that need it. Over the last year, teams in all of our offices have come together to support organisations which make their communities a better place. In the process, our people have used 4OC time to provide mentoring, collect hundreds of Easter eggs, festive packages and books – and our business-wide Christmas jumper day raised hundreds of pounds for charities across the country.