The "Great Resignation" is a term that has been tossed around recently to describe the unprecedented pace at which employees are leaving their jobs in hopes of something new or more challenging, an opportunity for increased pay, a better title, flexibility — and the list goes on.
With all this movement in the workforce, how do law firms entice their lawyers and staff to stay? Is it really about salary? What are the motivating factors for the departures, and how does a law firm proactively reduce them?
Everyone take a breath! No really, take a minute ... I will wait (insert "Jeopardy" theme music here). Now that your brain has cleared out all the stress hormones, let's dig into this topic together.
Why People May Be Quitting Their Jobs
First, we need to talk about why people are leaving their firms.
At their core, law firms are founded on their attorney and professional staff talent. They sell talent.
Law firm clients rely on that talent to help solve complicated matters. So those brilliant minds need to be fostered, much like those houseplants you may be neglecting and wondering why they are turning brown.
People need meaning and purpose in life to thrive, including within the work environment. If attorneys and staff members do not understand the impact of their work, they will never find purpose or meaning. Leaders can inspire their talent — by listening, by being open-minded, and by stepping up to guide their talent toward a goal together.
You have heard it before, but it bears repeating in hopes of enacting change: Younger generations thrive on feedback and mentorship, and they need leaders to inspire them and provide positive and critical, growth-focused feedback.
Most firms conduct annual reviews, but feedback needs to be delivered far more frequently.
I often hear from associates seeking an opportunity at a new firm about their frustrations when they turn in work to a partner, follow up a few times, and receive no response. It takes a few moments — a minute or two at most — to reply to the associate with some form of feedback. By ignoring this opportunity to guide that individual, the partner is communicating to the associate that they are simply a cog in the wheel, of no real importance, and just doing their job.
Those who feel undervalued at their current jobs are easily recruited by other firms. And believe me, there are thousands of recruiting agencies looking to capture their attention at this very moment.
Leaders who are engaged and offer frequent feedback often see their employee retention soar. If a partner sets aside some time to give one or two pieces of advice, an associate immediately feels their value. The time is always worth it, but if you need a more compelling reason, let's talk dollars. It can cost up to three times an individual's salary to replace them. This takes into account time spent placing an ad for the position, screening and interviewing candidates, onboarding, mentoring, and the potential increase in salary for the new hire. So, for example, an associate earning $200,000 may cost $600,000 to replace. Not to mention the risk of reputational damage from the associate potentially telling their network of peers about being undervalued, the time it takes to train a new hire, and the dip in morale among current employees who have to take on more work when someone departs. Is it worth the cost to replace an associate, instead of taking the time to deliver feedback? If you are thinking about this, the answer is no. We are all terribly busy, but consistent feedback must be a priority. I recently attended a webinar hosted by Leopard Solutions, a legal data tracking company, and they shared some data points on lateral partner and associate moves within the largest 200 firms in the country.1 Here is the data reported for the last five years:
The data clearly shows an uptick in lateral attorney movement, and this is only data reported on the firms they track; it also does not include professional staff moves.
Leopard Solutions also noted a considerable uptick in attorney job openings, from around 6,000 to 7,000 postings in 2020 to an astounding 13,000 in 2021 — almost double. Most job ads cost around $300 a month, which equates to a staggering $3.9 million in cost to publish these postings for one month. Yet another reason to spend the time with your talent.
We can all agree that COVID-19 forced firms to make some drastic changes overnight. Working from home had been an option for many tech companies over the years, but rarely for the traditional law firm. The pandemic forced a shift.
It presented new challenges for firms and an opportunity to form a new layer of trust between leaders and their teams. When we appeared to be heading into safer times, some firms mandated a return to the office, after attorneys and staff had been working from home for a year, devoid of hours commuting, dressing for the office, money spent on coffee and lunch.
The pandemic opened up new possibilities for the workforce with opportunities to work from home or be in the office on occasion. While working from home certainly presented challenges, particularly for parents, it also allowed more flexibility to do the tasks we often pack in on the weekend instead of resting. A break between meetings could mean finishing some laundry or going for a run. So some firms' mandates to return to the office were met with serious resentment, which resulted in attrition.
The pathway to partnership has also gotten longer year over year, for both lateral and entry-level hires.
Leopard Solutions reported a 61% increase in the time it takes a lateral to make partner; that bar is even higher for entry-level hires. Any attorney with a modicum of drive to become partner knows how long it takes at their current firm, and there are many firms emailing those lawyers promising them a partnership soon after they move over. We must look at the pathway to partnership and decide if there is a better way to move lawyers up the ranks faster or provide meaning and purpose to stay the course.
Retaining Our Talent Through Leadership
A phrase I use often is to "put the humanity back in the room," and by that, I mean to treat our talent well and be human. We are not machines, and we certainly do not want to work like a machine. We need leaders to operate with emotional intelligence, talk about failures openly, and be real in both the recruiting process and day-to-day interactions.
Remove the armor, to use a phrase from social psychologist Brené Brown. Ask how people are doing, check in on them, and talk — and care — about more than just the work being done. Culture is a process that starts by being human and connecting with each other on a human level.
Some firms recently increased associate salaries bolstered with an increase in billable hours. You can imagine the impact that had on associates.
Anecdotally, I can share that I heard from several friends, who happen to be associates in a few different markets, who were disgruntled to hear they were being asked to work longer hours. The salary increase did not matter to these individuals; they yearn for more time to spend having a life outside of work.
Again, firms and recruiters are reaching out to your talent regularly, giving upset attorneys and staff members opportunities to explore other options.
So, it's important to be mindful of the needs of our talent. What about encouraging associates to take time off and take vacations? I have heard some associates do not even understand how to take time off — from the actual logistics of leaving their out-of-office autoreply on to just checking out for a period of time to truly decompress.
I've also heard stories of practice leaders discouraging team members from planning vacations. This may be hard to believe, but it happens.
By discouraging vacations, the firm may be making money in the short term by billing for more client matters, but the cost in the long run is much greater when it results in high attrition rates due to burnout. Remember, it can cost up to three times the salary to replace someone. Not to mention the fact that time off is rejuvenating for attorneys and staff members, who will return ready to take on challenges because they are not in burnout mode.
As I mentioned above, we all need meaning and purpose, and the most effective way to do this, in my experience as a leader, is through excellent communication — i.e., clear, honest and heart-centered communication.
Share the firm's vision and strategic plan with enthusiasm and provide your talented workforce with regular updates. Include opportunities for people to share accolades. For example, include shoutouts on projects or matters in written communication, and then share them verbally at meetings as well, because not everything written is read.
Everyone wants to be acknowledged for magnificent work, and a monthly communication to acknowledge all levels of talent is a wonderful way to make your people feel seen and heard.
We are all hungry for community after two years of on-again, off-again in-person connection. This is why carefully curated integration programs and events that foster connections, build engagement and cultivate culture within the firm are a successful tool for retaining talent.
I recently attended a Zoom cooking event my firm hosted where we prepared a dish together, and despite the constant Zoom fatigue we all suffer from, it was a lot of fun and not once did the topic of work arise. We simply fumbled through a recipe together and enjoyed the time connecting and laughing, particularly over the foibles of cooking. (Top Chef is not going to be recruiting from our group.)
It is time to flip the script when it comes to retaining talent. We have an opportunity to put the humanity back in the room by leading the charge and making some change. We must embrace the change or pay the enormous cost to keep hiring talent through a revolving door.
In summary, here's a checklist that can be used to flip the script:
- Create meaning and purpose by curating opportunities to connect, in groups as well as with individuals; share the firm's or the practice's strategic vision and benchmarks monthly; and remind your team members to exercise patience with each other and be kind, as we all work through this new environment together.
- Take the time to give positive and constructive feedback to team members by setting up five- to 10-minute one-on-one calls to deliver feedback, making sure to hold to the meetings and not cancel. When offering feedback, be specific and develop action items, and create a calendar around the action items in order to follow up and measure growth.
- Mentor talent and give them a clear pathway to grow. Be clear, use graphics and show talent where they are on the path and where they are heading.
- Check in with team members and determine how they are doing in one-on-one meetings. Provide a feedback loop to share and gather information and ask about their well-being. Engagement surveys are also a terrific way to capture data, but only if there is an action plan set after feedback is received. Be sure to communicate the results of such surveys and any action items with regularity.
- Allow flexible working solutions, such as working from home, working from the office some days, and allowing for hours outside the standard 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. options.
- Reduce billable hour expectations or include more nonbillable activities in billable hour calculations, including volunteer or pro bono time and time spent on committees, in interviews and on firm projects.
- Provide wellness days off — a few days to be used at one time and not added onto a vacation or something of the like, to rejuvenate and relax.
And finally, remember to give yourself and others grace. We are all doing the best we can in these challenging times. Let us flip the script and seek opportunities to connect again, to grow together, and to inspire each other with meaning and purpose.
Footnote
1 Leopard Solutions (2021) The Great Resignation and the Great Retention: A Review of the 2021 Booming Legal Hiring Market and Predictions of What's to Come [PowerPoint Slides]: https://www.leopardsolutions.com/index.php/great-resignation-webinar-slides/. The 2021 number has since been updated to reflect full-year stats; the table above reflects the updated number.
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