Winner: ASDA
“Not only do the ASDA legal team do their job and do it well, but they enjoy it, and their enjoyment and spirit is catching.” So says one legal adviser of the winner of this category. It may have a £13bn turnover and employ 146,000 staff, but ASDA’s eight-strong legal team is tiny compared to those employed by financial institutions such as Barclays and Goldman Sachs. The judges were impressed by the legal team’s imaginative efforts to adapt their employer’s values to their own requirements. One of ASDA’s three values is ‘respect for the individual’. The team runs a series of programmes designed to provide coaching and mentoring for its staff, including ‘Stepping Stones’, which provides employees with a structured plan for career progression and promotion. Under the team’s ‘Clear as a Bell’ initiative, each guidance note, protocol and contract must be easily understood by at least 10 staff members, including five from the shop floor.
