In this article we talk about how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the way our legal industry works. In particular we explore how the pandemic impacted the working life of lawyer Sarah Frost of KWM Connexion. She talks about what she learned and the positive changes she is hanging onto.
Sarah Frost is a highly skilled commercial litigator and legal consultant. She had worked flexibly for many years. When the rest of the industry shifted to working from home, it meant very little change for her. Despite this, she found that changes enforced by government restrictions and state health directions would still have many lessons for her.
When we spoke to Sarah, she provided a personal insight into the impacts of COVID-19 on her day to day working life. Many of her thoughts were confirmed by the findings of our Legal Industry Survey published late last year.
Prior to the pandemic, Sarah had arranged her week so that she had two days in the office. This gave her an opportunity to maintain her network and to catch up with people for a coffee. Covid gave her permission to pause this perpetual busyness, to regroup and to take a breath. Sarah continued much of her mentoring and relationship building by connecting online with her network.
Communication
Sarah says that Covid-19 forced people to consider how they were communicating and to make the effort to communicate better. Sarah said she felt that she had to be more thoughtful around how messaging and tone is perceived. The lack of personal, face-to-face interaction was a factor in the need for improvement in communication within teams. Sarah says “You realise a lot about yourself and your style of communication when there’s a lot lost in translation.”
Productivity
Sarah observed in her experience that Covid-19 altered what it meant to be a valued and trusted employee. Law firms were forced to extend their trust in their staff to be productive at home. This meant that junior staff, administration staff and personal assistants all were trusted to work from home, many for the first time. In Sarah’s personal experience, she has always been able to work flexibly and part-time because she went above and beyond.
The work from home model requires a lot of trust placed on the employee where work product is a measure of productivity. Sarah’s personal experience correlates to our Legal Industry Survey findings where 90% of people saw an uplift in productivity working from home (as long as the work was available).
Client Expectations
The tightening of client expectations has been a challenge for many individuals in terms of managing their day. Many clients expected the same responsiveness, work product and deliverables regardless of where you were working from. Sarah found that the financial pressure from a client perspective and delivering billable targets meant that the focus had to be on efficiency and productivity whether you’re at home or in the office. In Sarah’s experience, there was an increase in the time required to manage matters than there was before. Sarah felt that this was not necessarily reflected in changed daily targets.
The challenge faced by firms after this period of working remotely seems to be justifying that their teams should return to the office in a full time capacity. Sarah shared with us the importance of working in the office for informal communication, connectedness and engagement within a team and positive relationships with clients.
Sarah felt that post Covid-19 there is a lot more autonomy around coming up with your working arrangements within your own team. Firms are requiring a commitment from people on a team-by-team basis on how they want to work. This has proved effective for maintaining flexibility and ensuring teams are also coming together in person.
The lessons Sarah learned whilst continuing her legal career in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic are all encompassing across firms, industries and the country. Business-as-usual will most likely never look exactly as it did in the past. Taking the improvements to technology, communication and allowing staff to be trusted to work from home when necessary or for work life balance reasons are now a part of the future of work in our legal industry. There will remain challenges with finding a balance that fosters connections and still allows remote and flexible working. We will continue to watch this space in relation to the few firms that want all employees in the office full time and what this will mean for employee retention.
If you are considering your next career move, we can help. Contact us for a confidential career consultation where we can help you understand your market value and what is on offer in the Brisbane legal industry. You can make an appointment by emailing us at info@alexcorreaexecutive.com.au.
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