Annual report 2022 - Report - Page 26
Vital on-the-job
learning and
development
– every day
26 Annual Report 2022
In a company like Horten, where
knowledge is the basis for our earnings, it
is crucial to create a working environment
where learning happens on the job. This
is achieved through collaboration at all
levels, where more experienced
employees delegate and assist those with
less experience, where new ideas can be
born at all levels, and where sparring and
feedback help everyone to develop.
This knowledge is continually
supplemented through external and
internal courses and networks for all
employees. Employees and partners are
trained in legal matters, other
professional and sector topics, and in
personal development. These must
together ensure that we can provide
holistic consultancy at Horten.
As part of our personal development
initiatives, Horten has offered everyone in
the company the opportunity to do the
HjerneRo digital course. The course,
which started with two presentations in
autumn 2022, runs for four weeks. It is
based on metacognitive principles that
teach participants how to have more
mental energy in their daily work and to
prevent negative stress.
HjerneRo complements, at an individual
level, the broader efforts of Horten’s
managers to create strong teams with
room for diversity – at both the
professional and personal level. To
further support the management efforts,
‘Management of different generations’
was one of the topics at Horten’s partner
conference in 2022. This looked at what
drives the younger generations, and what
a more diverse team means for
innovation, results and well-being.
We have a strong focus on onboarding
new assistant attorneys, who learn the
legal profession over three years on the
job in the company and through the
lawyer studies at the Danish Bar and Law
Society. A good onboarding process is
crucial in order to create the sense of
security that allows new employees to
get off to a good start and launch into
the many exciting tasks. We have
therefore improved the buddy scheme
for assistant attorney in 2022 by making
the buddy role clearer and through
stronger ties between new assistant
attorneys and their buddies.
Providing career paths for everyone is a
priority at Horten. In 2022 we introduced
a new ‘Director’ title for lawyers. This will
help create a new career step and a
training platform for potential future
partners.
It is a general priority to ensure good
cooperation between managers and
employees and between support staff
and lawyers, e.g. when developing new
initiatives. This results in the best
solutions and the strongest ownership
afterwards. Collaboration between
assistant attorneys, lawyers, support
staff and senior management led to a
new bonus scheme, which Horten tested
for the first time in 2022.
We pass on knowledge
Horten puts great importance on
knowledge sharing, and it is a natural
part of our daily work with cases and
customers. We have an established
knowledge sharing network across the
departments, and each has developed a
strategy with relevant knowledge
initiatives.
Horten’s knowledge department, which is
one of our support staff functions,
focuses on innovation and regularly
develops new tools, programmes and
activities to help promote knowledge
sharing in Horten, in close cooperation
with the legal areas.
One key tool is Horten Draft, which
streamlines and optimises our internal
processes for standard documents.
Documents for a number of areas of
specialisation were fully implemented in
Horten Draft in 2022, and we will focus
on training our employees in the use of
and automation of documents in Horten
Draft in 2023.
Horten makes books and journals
available, in a physical library and online,
so our attorneys can always keep abreast
of the latest knowledge. We initiated the
Going Digital project in 2022, which
focuses on changing from print to
electronic media. This work will continue
in 2023.
As a modern knowledge company, we
also invite our customers in for
professional inspiration. We do this
physically through a wide range of
courses, network meetings and lectures
at our offices in Hellerup and Aarhus, and
digitally through several free webinar
series, which draw hundreds of
participants each month to explore
topics ranging from GDPR to public
administration.
Horten Co-study is our universe of exam
preparation videos and booklets for law
students around Denmark, where our
own students review papers and share
tips for exams in key areas such as
contract law, tort law, purchase law and
law of obligations.