The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility. Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The pandemic has changed the perception of flexibility from “a nice to have” to a business imperative. Prior to March 2020, some organizational leaders did not buy into workplace flexibility. Fast forward to 2021 and the conversations around flex are very different. Rather than asking why we need flex, more leaders are now focusing on how we can make flex as effective as possible. Organizations across all industries must think strategically about workplace flexibility in order to reap recruiting, retention, and business productivity benefits. To help you reboot your workplace flexibility policy, the Alliance has the following recommendations:
Reflect, Reassess & Reimagine. We urge all organizations to look back and carefully reflect on the past year. How has your mission, values, products/services and/or business operations changed? In what ways can flexibility help with these changes? What were the positive impacts of flexibility in terms of productivity, satisfaction/engagement and recruiting/retention? We recommend that organizations create a task force of diverse leaders on the future of work, and collect data on employee productivity/satisfaction now to understand what worked and what didn’t. This will help revamp your flex policy post-pandemic, implement it effectively and create necessary infrastructure support. See our action step, Paving the Way for Flexible Work After the Pandemic Now, for ideas on how to monitor/measure employee experiences.
https://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/DFA-Action-Steps.jpg596800dfalliancehttps://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DFA-Humanizing-Work-Cultures-scaled.pngdfalliance2021-03-30 11:01:232021-03-30 11:01:23Action Step – Recommendations for Revising Your Flexible Working Initiative Post-Pandemic
The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility. Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The pandemic has forever broadened the scope of flexible work. Many employees have learned to effectively work flexibly and/or remotely during the COVID-19 crisis and have experienced the benefits of flexible work. Organizational leaders are now considering how/what types of flexible work to offer after the pandemic. The Alliance has a number of recommendations for flexible work policies post-pandemic, so these initiatives can reap the greatest benefits in terms of work productivity, and recruitment/retention of top talent:
Holistic Flexible Work – We strongly recommend implementing holistic flexible work policies, including reduced hours, telecommuting, flextime, compressed work week, asynchronous hours and job sharing options, as employees have individual flex needs. Additionally, by providing holistic flexible work options, employees who may not be able to utilize certain forms of flex due to their job function can still use other types of flex (i.e. a receptionist may not be able to telecommute due to his/her function but may be able to work reduced hours, flextime or compressed work week).
The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility. Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The concerning results of our recently released 2020 New Partner Report, combined with the recent studies showing that women will be forced to leave the workforce due to the pandemic, could signal a step backwards for gender parity at top leadership levels. Our report shows that the share of women among new partners dropped slightly this year (40.9% in 2020 vs. 41.3% in 2019) and is only the second time over the last nine years when there was a year over year drop. Furthermore, according to NALP, the share of women minority partners at 3.45% is significantly lower than the share of total women partners (24.17%), indicating that cautionary trends uncovered from our 2020 New Partner Report would impact this group even more drastically. Organizations need to double down efforts now to increase the gender and ethnic parity at the top.
Hiring with Intentionality. In our 2020 New Partner Report, we discussed the need to focus on strategically recruiting mid-level and senior level women attorneys through lateral hiring efforts, and we recommend organizations do the same for women of color. The representation of these groups at the associate level (46.77% women and 14.48% women of color)[1] is similar to the shares of these groups in terms of law school enrollment (54% women and 18.6% minority women),[2] but the representation of these groups greatly decrease at the partnership level (24.17% women and 3.45% women of color).[3] Organizations need to intentionally focus on increasing their women of color lateral recruiting pool by tapping into internal networks (i.e.
https://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/DFA-Action-Steps.jpg596800dfalliancehttps://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DFA-Humanizing-Work-Cultures-scaled.pngdfalliance2021-01-27 17:09:222021-01-27 17:17:56Action Step – Gaining Gender and Racial Parity at the Top
Action Step – Recommendations for Revising Your Flexible Working Initiative Post-Pandemic
The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility. Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The pandemic has changed the perception of flexibility from “a nice to have” to a business imperative. Prior to March 2020, some organizational leaders did not buy into workplace flexibility. Fast forward to 2021 and the conversations around flex are very different. Rather than asking why we need flex, more leaders are now focusing on how we can make flex as effective as possible. Organizations across all industries must think strategically about workplace flexibility in order to reap recruiting, retention, and business productivity benefits. To help you reboot your workplace flexibility policy, the Alliance has the following recommendations:
Members: continue reading this Action Step in the Member Resource Center
To read this entire Action Step become a member of the Diversity &
Action Step – Future of Work: Post-Pandemic Flexible Work Policies
The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility. Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The pandemic has forever broadened the scope of flexible work. Many employees have learned to effectively work flexibly and/or remotely during the COVID-19 crisis and have experienced the benefits of flexible work. Organizational leaders are now considering how/what types of flexible work to offer after the pandemic. The Alliance has a number of recommendations for flexible work policies post-pandemic, so these initiatives can reap the greatest benefits in terms of work productivity, and recruitment/retention of top talent:
Members: continue reading this Action Step in the Member Resource Center
To read this entire Action Step become a member of the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance. To learn more contact Manar Morales.
Action Step – Gaining Gender and Racial Parity at the Top
The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility. Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
The concerning results of our recently released 2020 New Partner Report, combined with the recent studies showing that women will be forced to leave the workforce due to the pandemic, could signal a step backwards for gender parity at top leadership levels. Our report shows that the share of women among new partners dropped slightly this year (40.9% in 2020 vs. 41.3% in 2019) and is only the second time over the last nine years when there was a year over year drop. Furthermore, according to NALP, the share of women minority partners at 3.45% is significantly lower than the share of total women partners (24.17%), indicating that cautionary trends uncovered from our 2020 New Partner Report would impact this group even more drastically. Organizations need to double down efforts now to increase the gender and ethnic parity at the top.