Donna Beevers - Group Head of People
Donna Beevers recently celebrated her 15th anniversary with First4Lawyers, working her way up from claims adviser to Group Head of People. Here the mum-of-two, from Pontefract, explains what makes it such a great place to work and why she’s passionate about helping colleagues progress their careers.
When I joined First4Lawyers in 2009, I was one of just four employees outside of the directors who, up until then, had been doing everything themselves. It’s incredible to think how we’ve grown since then.
Fresh out of university, where I obtained a first-class honours degree in law and my LPC, I was keen to start work and the idea of being in on the ground floor of such a new and exciting business really appealed to me.
I started out as a claims adviser, speaking to callers who had suffered personal injury or medical negligence and working out whether we could help them, before being promoted to team leader. It’s a long time ago now, but the experience I gained and the understanding of the business and its clients was invaluable and a great foundation for my future career.
I became head of personnel in 2019 when I came back to work after having my second child. It had been agreed that, because of how much the business had grown, there was a need for the role and I was ready for a new challenge. Be careful what you wish for! I was just over a year into that role when the pandemic hit and the world went into lockdown, dramatically changing working practices and the way I did my job.
Going from everyone working in the same office to the flexible, remote working model we now offer has been a challenge when you’re the one in charge of keeping colleagues connected! It has been a big change but I believe it is for the better. The talent pool is much wider – prior to the pandemic, we would not have considered recruiting someone in London, but now we have colleagues all over the country. The business has also grown significantly in recent years and I have been heavily involved with that, for instance, recruiting a brand new team to launch First4InjuryClaims. This was reflected by my most recent promotion – to Group Head of People – in May last year.
We now have 67 employees but there is no hierarchy and I think that’s the key to why so many people stay. It’s important that everyone feels part of the team, that their ideas and contributions are valued and that they feel that their ongoing development and career progression means as much to us as it does to them. My career has developed with First4Lawyers, including studying for my CIPD HR qualification, and I’m passionate about helping others do the same.
We are continually striving to adapt and ensure the working environment is as good as it can be, particularly now we’re not all based in the same office. Managers have regularly check-ins with their reports on at least a weekly, if not a daily basis, and we’ve recently introduced something called ‘talent talks’ to encourage managers to think more proactively about whether individual team members are fulfilling their potential. We’re also moving away from annual appraisals as we want it to be more of an ongoing conversation.
We have started an internal newsletter to showcase the work going on in different parts of the business as well as celebrating the achievements of individuals and that has been well received, just one of several ways we try to connect colleagues across the business.
We are also in the process of organising a series of face-to-face events, which I think are incredibly important. We celebrated our 15th anniversary in 2023 and got everyone together for a team-building day, ending with a pillow jump which was a lot of fun!
Our charitable efforts also bring us together, from Macmillan coffee mornings to food collections for the less fortunate in our community every Christmas. I’m really proud of the ongoing support we provide to The Welcome Centre, a food bank and advice centre based on our doorstep in Huddersfield, which we are hoping to do even more with in the future.
Outside of work, I mostly spend my weekends watching football – either at Elland Road or on the touchline of the two teams that my sons, aged six and nine, now play for. I do try and carve out some time for myself too, either strength training or pilates, but as any working mum will tell you there often aren’t enough hours in the day!
