Unlocking legal services for Royal Mail
If there’s one thing Royal Mail’s familiar with, it’s front doors. But this one’s a bit different.
Through a collaboration with Deloitte Legal and tech leader ServiceNow, the company has opened its ‘legal front door’ – an online portal designed to improve how colleagues request advice from its in-house lawyers.
Created to make sure the experts can devote time to issues that really matter, this one-stop-shop is laying a path to long-term success.
Legal departments play an integral role in large organisations, advising on everything from employment law to commercial transactions. But what if data is the key to helping them run more efficiently and deliver more effectively to the business?
Royal Mail is testing the theory through its new legal work intake portal. Launched in August 2021, it’s accelerating resolution of routine queries while providing the company’s lawyers with valuable insights on the work they do.
A smarter approach
TThe portal is the legal equivalent of an IT helpdesk, capturing and triaging all queries from Royal Mail colleagues.
But it’s smarter than that. It captures a complete picture of the department’s work, including request volumes, the amount of time spent on specific actions and how long it takes to complete them. And that kind of information helps Royal Mail improve workflows, prioritise effectively and make better use of resources by allocating the most appropriate lawyer for specific scenarios.
Tom Birdseye, a Director in Deloitte Legal’s Law Department Consulting practice in the UK, headed up our project team. He says; “Royal Mail are seeing an increase in self-service for routine queries, faster resolution times and much more appropriate allocation of expert legal resource.
“The result is a more resilient service and an increasingly more interesting mix of work for lawyers. Also, having metrics around your work is key to demonstrating value to the business and driving ongoing improvement.
“This is a cornerstone that sets the tone for how legal work is delivered in the future.”
Foundation for the future
The tech was provided by ServiceNow’s new Legal Services module, with Deloitte Legal working with Royal Mail to design, build and test processes that met the needs of both lawyers and business customers. Deloitte Legal also supported Royal Mail staff who are now using the new system - running training and induction sessions and liaising with the change champions to help them build buy-in for the new ways of working. This was the first implementation of Service Now’s new Legal Services module in Europe and with the entire six-month project navigated remotely during COVID-19, it was a testament to the strength of the collaboration and the commitment of the Royal Mail project team led by Jason Sykes, Royal Mail’s Legal Operations Manager.
Far from being a short-term fix, this is a long-term solution that can inspire others who are looking to improve. “It provides real foundational capabilities – it’s a building block for our future success as a legal department” confirmed Dinesh Jadav, Royal Mail’s Director of Legal Operations and the projects sponsor.
And what are the take-aways for Deloitte Legal? “This sort of work intake project is challenging for a legal function but it is possible to deliver quickly and smoothly with close collaboration between us, our client and a committed technology partner,” Tom adds. “It’s fabulous that we can refer to such a powerful success story when talking to other legal departments daunted by the challenge of this sort of transformative change.”
By housing all things law-related behind a single front door, Royal Mail are exploring a smarter, more data-driven way of working. They’re also setting a new standard for legal departments.
