A contribution policy across a 5,000-person EMEA region

The work was already happening. Associates were putting hours into inclusion, pro bono and knowledge management, recording it as admin, and the firm had no line of sight to whether any of it served what it was trying to achieve in those areas.

The policy let associates count up to fifty hours a year of that work towards bonus eligibility, once their billable target had been met. Alignment was built into how it was recorded: the codes mapped to specific strategic priorities, and people had to say what their work supported. That worked in both directions. People could see what the firm was trying to achieve and where their own effort sat against it, and the centre could see what was actually being done on the ground for each priority, including smaller local pieces of work worth pulling into something regional or global.

The idea came out of conversations I'd been having with Talent; the Director of Talent Management took it to the Regional Management Committee. I worked on the wording, reviewed it before release, and revised it after launch on feedback from the people using it, mostly to simplify what was being asked of them. I owned the inclusion strand.

Getting it used meant working across the region: office and practice group leadership, committee calls, and the champions network, where I ran sessions every six weeks and heard what was and wasn't landing well enough to adjust the guidance. I verified what was recorded — the codes, and whether the commentary described work that qualified and connected to the priority it was filed under. Where it didn't I went back to people individually, and a small number had to undo what they'd recorded. Speaking, organising and following through on actions counted; attendance on its own did not. That line went in early, because a loose precedent in year one would have been hard to tighten later.

Associates were in scope. Partners were not.