As the sun starts to shine brightly on LNTV HQ, and thoughts turn to walks in the park, ice creams, sand under our feet, and avoiding the tourists on Oxford Street, we this week spoke with Sally Woodward Founding Principal of Sherwood PSF Consulting about what law firms can do to try and retain their best talent. Sally helps leaders and senior professionals achieve the best results for themselves, their teams and their firms (http://www.sherwoodpsfconsulting.com/sally_woodward.html). Here is a sneak preview of our interview with Sally, for our upcoming programme ‘Staff Retention’, in the Practice Management & Compliance channel:
Interviewer: One of the reasons identified as a trigger for staff turnover is often a perceived lack of opportunity to experience the right type of work or the right mix of work. What would you say a law firm can do to counteract this?
Sally Woodward: Well, it’s certainly true that I’m often told that a feeling of stopping learning or even being bored is one of the main reasons why associates, and actually even some young partners, choose to leave. There are some strategies that some firms are using to try and address some of these issues. Having said that, it’s also important that they think about the way the partners and the managers are measured in order for these strategies to work, because many of them can, on the face of it, result in the expenditure of time that can’t be charged to the client. The four main areas where firms are working on this are work allocation, the way in which work is spread around, the policy on specialisation, both the timing of it and what that actually means. the use of secondments and shadowing within the firm and also with clients, and also the encouragement of better on-the-job training and particularly the use of skills that ensure that people get more context and understanding and see the bigger picture, even when that’s not strictly necessary to get the job done. So all of those taken together can actually spread whatever work there is available around in a way that keeps variety and increases development. But, as I said, the firms have to be very careful that there aren’t other systems that get in the way of people actually making strategies work.
Interviewer: And if one of the triggers is a perceived lack of opportunity to progress, again, what can a law firm do?
Sally Woodward: Certainly it’s true that in most firms, the path to partnership is longer and fewer people make it. Having said that, I think a lot of the generation Y lawyers I speak to they’re not actually interested in partnership or at least they say they’re not, perhaps that’s partly because they see that the way in which many partners are, work very hard and are constantly stressed out, but what can a firm do where opportunities are limited? Well, first, they can make sure that people continue to have a sense of development and learning and that will keep them in the firm longer than might otherwise be the case. Sometimes there is simply lack of transparency about what the prospects are, perceived unfairness about how decisions are made. So in other words, I feel if there were more honest conversations about what the opportunities were, people might be prepared to stay around longer to pursue them. Many firms are, of course, experimenting with alternatives to partnership because not everybody wants partnership. Knowledge lawyers have been around for a while now and it’s interesting to see their role has become much more client facing recently. Many firms have been developing specialist roles that reflect the way the legal market is changing, so project managers, for example, client managers, marketing business development experts in to which many lawyers move in to these roles. So there are an increasing number of alternatives. But, as I say, sometimes I think the problem is more apparent than real, because people make assumptions about what lawyers want without actually checking them.
Interviewer: And what about partners? What can a firm do to help their careers progress?
Sally Woodward: Well, I think that’s a very interesting question because in many firms historically once you got the label of partner you were sort of left alone to get on with it, and sort of development and career planning really stopped. And with more and more firms having structured tiered partnerships, fixed share, A partners, B partners, C partners and so on, the career progression of a partner is just as important and needs to be thought about and managed as that of an associated, particularly as it can take many years now to, if you like, move up the pecking order and, indeed, the financial ladder. So many firms are having the same sorts of conversations with partners that they have with associates about what opportunities there are. Some partners are being involved in special projects in a number, a variety of contexts – client facing, important management initiatives like, for example, developing women leaders and some are again using secondments with clients as part of their career progressions as a partner. So whatever is happening at associate level I think needs to be mirrored once people become partners. The other big change I’m seeing is firms are getting much more proactive and strategic about thinking about succession opportunities, both in to client facing roles and in to management. So more and more firms are offering leadership development opportunities to take part in strategic projects that will be of interest to those partners who see themselves in future leadership and management roles.
To see Sally being interviewed in our studio, and to hear everything she had to say on this interesting topic, please call our wonderful Sales Team on 01483 216000 or 07770 496406.
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