According to a recent roundtable of law firm chief talent officers, issues around talent management are still a top concern for many CTOs
Recent feedback from the chief talent officer on their top concerns – beyond their law firm’s economics, of course – illustrates how the challenges of how best to offer their best talent reward structure beyond compensation and career paths outside of partnerships continue to plague law firm leaders.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, the expectations of law firm employees have evolved to include a desire for more flexibility, an expansion of career mobility options, a desire to limit personal time, and a need to continue a culture of care that started immediately. days after the sudden work-from-home mandate of March 2020.
Overcome talent challenges
During a chief talent officer (CTO) roundtable meeting, an open discussion with 25 law firm attendees earlier this year, the participants described how their law firm was coping with these challenges.
Seek regular feedback
The first action recommended by the CTO is to regularly gather feedback from partners and attorneys through one-on-one meetings. The purpose of this meeting is to provide an opportunity for law firms to: I) check with each employee about what they are doing; ii) ask each individual what they need; And I, I, I) explores how everyone feels about their career development.
Investing time to meet one-on-one with each associate allows for “in-depth conversations about what they do” to identify priority areas of focus for improved action, said one CTO roundtable participant, adding that taking time to “listen to the concerns and needs of the fit for engagement.
Further, the roundtable describes how law firms embarking on efforts to proactively gather feedback use tactics such as in-person interviews and registering firm associate committees. In fact, using in-house interviews rather than exit interviews, can offer companies a way to proactively retain existing employees to gather data about their current employees’ experiences, as well as their decisions to stay with the company. One CTO attendee pointed out that he and his company’s director of professional development conducted one-on-one interviews with the company’s 800 attorneys.
Other CTOs, for example, use their company’s associate committees to identify how comfortable associates feel about generating interest in non-partner career paths.
As a result of initiating informal conversations with these associates, some CTOs are reprioritizing their efforts around common themes, such as reframing professional development now as ability management. Indeed, while the term professional development came up with an obsolete paradigm all around trainingwhile historically having lawyers sit in seminars consuming information rather than actively engaging with it, talent management has no such rhetorical weight.
In addition, this change in terminology effectively shifts the paradigm from training and more towards learning. This further underscores the evolving perspective of redefining professional development trainingturn it into a new way of thinking about learningwhich suggests a more active and engaged approach to skills development content.
This process further enables the company to prioritize client development skills earlier in the associate’s career. One company partnered with its head of marketing and business development to create learning opportunities for mid- and senior-level employees, its CTO said.
Expand career options
The second recommendation from the CTO roundtable is that law firms need to increase the flexibility of career mobility outside of partnerships. This process includes a transformation of approaches to skills development and learning.
To this end, many law firms expand options for career paths in a number of ways, including extending some of the paths that have existed for some time, such as promoting assignments, career guidance, and advice positions, and more, new tactics such as company-sponsored coaching. Most CTOs mentioned success in using secondment and coaching.
success using advice or special adviser titles as promotions are more diverse, and adoption of these tracks is down to corporate culture. More explicitly, deliberate efforts by company leadership, partners, and the company’s HR department to elevate this position are key to driving a stronger buy-in for additional career paths as a viable alternative to partners.
Two companies are even offering greater mobility while off the beaten track partner line based on the life stage of the attorney. For example, experienced law firm attorneys with parenthood point out that flexibility does not eliminate the partnership path once and for all; instead of shifting the attorney’s direction and focus to what they are currently experiencing at that stage of their life, but that doesn’t mean that this direction will stay that way forever.
Utilize an individual approach to career learning
Finally, on the learning side, one of the most common ways that law firms cater to their lawyers’ preferences for extended career mobility is by taking a specific approach to individual skill development in both core and technical competencies and integrating this with individual preferences. for a career path.
In addition to individual learning and development career plans, several CTOs highlighted that they created customized learning programs based on the unique outcomes of the pandemic and the shift to hybrid work. For example, a CTO discovered the need to offer “respect at work” training after the pandemic.
Other companies invest in developing additional skills for partners in areas such as leadership, project management, respecting personal time, and how to allocate work effectively, especially when partners communicate that they are unavailable for urgent work assignments.
However, young associates whose law school experience focused primarily on virtual or remote learning in the early years of the pandemic still need special attention to basic communications, executive functioning, and learning how to prioritize.
The solution to continuing hybrid work barriers
One major conundrum that law firms continue to grapple with — and discussed at CTO roundtables — is how to ensure productive work while still providing white-glove client service and meeting the new expectations of employees working on a hybrid basis. A key part of this challenge is the ongoing constraint on how or whether law firms should strongly encourage lawyers to return to their offices. One incentive that has been touted as successful is an offer jean clothes weekdays so that people can be “as comfortable in the office as at home.”
Another major career development barrier is replicating mentoring in a hybrid work environment. To meet this challenge, one company asked its partners, “how can we better guide you?” and use testimonials from associates to help partners better understand how to meet these employee needs.
Overall, this and previous CTO roundtable discussions have suggested two tactics for engaging current employees: I) ask for continuous feedback; And ii) using regular check-in. By taking the time to listen to employee concerns, assertive leadership can encourage engagement and enhance individual well-being. For law firms, these actions can help build an overall positive employee experience and increase the retention of valuable attorneys.
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