Aim and Overview

At Maxwell Hodge, we aim to provide employees with meaningful opportunities for training and development.

There are therefore a wide range of positions available at the company, including promotion to leadership positions. This includes Office Manager, Team Leader, and Director/Shareholder.

Furthermore, we want to support people, where we can, through the likes of term time hours for employees studying their law degree. This flexible approach enables employees to gain both practical and theoretical knowledge and experience to further them in their career. Where Directors agree for an employee to undertake a degree or qualification, they will be entitled to paid study and exam leave.

Trainees

We do not recruit a set number of trainees each year, nor offer a set amount of training contracts. Our approach to training and development is much more tailored to the individual, considering how personal goals and aspirations align with company objectives, such as succession planning.

Career Development

Employees have several formal opportunities to discuss career development with their manager. This occurs right at the outset during recruitment, and then at the probationary review meetings (3 and 6 months) as well as during the annual appraisal process. This allows management to draw up development plans for employees to move to the next step of their career. This may include smaller objectives such as taking on more responsibility to move from an assistant to a Fee Earner, or the objective and plan may focus on progression to a leadership role and the training and support required to achieve this.

We look to grow talent by recognising individual skillsets and knowledge to progress people into a new role. There are skills that senior management are always looking to identify in people, whether that be for promotion to a leadership role, a training contract being offered or the business agreeing to fund a qualification for an individual. These skills include:

• Relationship building
• Agility and adaptability
• Innovation and creativity
• Decision-making
• Conflict management
• Negotiation
• Critical thinking
• Supervision

Whenever employees are appointed to a new role, formal training is provided. The extent of the training will be determined by the seniority of the position. In all cases, there will be in house and external training courses, job shadowing and mentoring but for leadership positions there is a training period of at least 12 months, which includes working closely with senior management under their guidance and supervision to carry out the duties associated with the position. Having this training period enables the trainee to assess whether the role is right for them long-term and equally allows management to assess whether they are the best candidate for the role.

You can look at our Team page to see career development of our people and the different opportunities they have had.