The Bottom Line
April 2002 Vol. 23, No. 3
Statements or expressions of opinion or comments appearing herein are those of the editors or contributors, and not necessarily those of the association or section.
Contents
* How would you rate the morale in your office? Diagnosing the problem
* Office morale, Part II: Making things better--twenty things that you can do or begin today
How would you rate the morale in your office? Diagnosing the problem
By Joseph Dailing
When you walk into your office in the morning, what does it feel like? Is your office a place where people greet one another politely or even enthusiastically or is your office a place where no one says "Good Morning" and where people quietly pass in the hallway without acknowledging each other?
Do staff members bristle at the mention of some co-worker's name? Is it hard to get two secretaries to work together on a project that is important to the office? Does your staff celebrate important events in each others' lives such as birthdays, weddings or the birth of a new child? If you gave an office party, and attendance was not required or expected, would anyone come?
If your employees, partners, co-workers or staff members don't get along with one another, bicker and abuse one another and don't trust each other and refuse to work together, you have the makings of a toxic work place. And when people aren't getting along on a regular basis and don't trust one another, the tension in the air can be as palatable as the cigarette smoke that used to permeate offices. Bad morale, negativity and soured human relationships effect productivity and motivation and can drive away good staff. And if the situation gets bad enough, it can also drive away clients who don't want to be part of such a negative atmosphere. A dysfunctional office can effect the bottom line, make no mistake about it.
What can you do? First of all, you have to find the cause or causes of the problem. And the first look should be inward, if you are a solo practitioner. If you are a member of a multi-lawyer firm, besides yourself, you need to look at your partners. Like it or not, bosses set the tone of the office, either by the things that they do or the things that they don't do. A person who is quietly manipulative of people and events can be every bit as destructive to office morale as a person who periodically rages at staff. The latter is just easier to spot and maybe even easier to change.
While you are undergoing this self-examination what do you need to look at? The first thing that you should examine is how you and your partners treat associates and support staff? Are these staff members viewed as automatons who must blindly follow orders or do you seek out their input on matters about which they know something? When you give your secretary or paralegal an assignment to complete, do you explain what you want from them or do you just hand them the file and expect them to figure out what is needed? And if the work is returned incomplete or incorrect because you did not give clear directions, what is your reaction? Is that the time when it is fair game to criticize and verbally assault the subordinate?
Are you or your partners or anyone else in authority the kind of people who are changeable and unpredictable, nice one day and surly or depressed the next day? Do you or your partners take credit for something when the credit really belongs to a subordinate or an associate? Do you or your partners or anyone in authority rebuke subordinates in public or ridicule other people's ideas? Do you or your partners ignore other's schedules, demanding meetings to discuss matters that can wait, knowing that only your schedule matters.
Or do you and your partners ignore problems between staff members, hoping that they will go away even as the situation worsens? Do you fail to congratulate subordinates or associates on a job well done? Is the firm's reward system nonexistent? Do you or your partners think that the only reward necessary is the annual raise which is given or denied without explanation? When planning a major change in the case management system, do you consult support staff and associates about what features they might find helpful in a case management system?
And if you have answered "yes" to more than a few of these questions, you need look no farther. The bad morale, destructiveness and negativity probably starts with you and your partners. But if you can answer "no" to most of those questions, the source of your problems may lie elsewhere.
You need to look at your associates and staff. If you have staff members who think that it is acceptable to be surly, uncooperative and unproductive, you need to warn those staff members that they either must change or leave. You need to tell them in no uncertain terms that such behavior is unacceptable and must cease.
It makes no difference what the source of the toxicity is in your office, it has to be eliminated. If a partner is the source of the problem, the resolution becomes more complex but the final result is the same. And you need to fix the situation because bad morale undermines productivity, increases turnover of competent people and ensures that good clients are likely to seek other counsel when it is apparent that the work atmosphere is toxic. Turnover usually means that good people leave because incompetent people seldom leave on their own. They have nowhere else to go.
Your firm cannot afford a partner who is explosive towards other staff or a partner who is fine right one day but depressed the next day. In these situations, staff members and other partners feel like they are walking on eggs all day and that decreases productivity and self-esteem. And in the end, people hate coming to work.
Your firm also cannot afford two secretaries who feud constantly and disrupt office routine and the production of work. Occasionally two staff members do not get along or even like one another and it is not possible to order them to be friends. But, at a minimum, they must be able to put aside those personal issues and focus on the work to be done. If they can't put aside those negative feelings and do the job, one or both of them needs to leave.
Firing people can be expensive if it is not done correctly. If you don't feel competent to handle these personnel problems, see what outside resources are available to help. To ignore a developing problem is to ensure that it will ultimately consume all or most of the office staff and will also consume huge amounts of work time. In some situations, partners, associates or staff may need professional assistance to deal with their work-related problems. Give them a referral to an employee assistance program and be supportive but do not involve yourself in their problems. In the end, partners, associates or staff members need to decide to change. No one else can do it for them.
The final part of the analysis is to examine your office policies to see if any of them indirectly support or encourage this bad behavior. What do these policies, assuming that you have some, say about what you think about human nature? Do these policies reflect a distrust of staff and associates or do they reflect policies that are intended to set clear directions for staff while also providing them support when needed? If you don't really trust your staff or your partners, you either need to get new partners or staff or change your attitude. No personnel manual is ever going to be complete enough to protect against every possible infraction that an employee might commit. And after the examination is complete, you need to make sure that your office policies encourage initiative, reward good work and reflect a positive view of human nature. Everyone makes mistakes and a few people are genuine troublemakers but to build policies that are meant to catch the aberration and treat everyone as a potential felon is counterproductive to good office moral and a positive working environment.
There is an old adage that a lawyer ought to spend more time choosing his or her work partners than he or she does in choosing his or her marital partner because the lawyer will spend more time with his partner at work than she or he will with his life partner. Whether that is true or not, it does point up the truth that we also have relationships at work, relationships that are critical to being successful at work and in our work life. These relationships, like our relationships with our families, require attention. Like a good partnership in our personal life, a good partnership at work doesn't just happen without at least occasional attention to it. Creating a good place to work, an office where you and your partners and your staff like to come most days can make a difference in your life, make no doubt about it. And who wants to spend thirty or forty or even fifty years of one's life working in a situation that is depressing, negative and ultimately toxic? Life is way too short to live in such a negative environment when you have the power to change it into something positive.
If your office atmosphere is negative and toxic, turning the atmosphere into a positive and supportive environment isn't a luxury. It's a necessity.
Office morale, Part II
Making things better--twenty things that you can do or begin today
By Joseph Dailing
Developing or keeping good morale in a law office can often be an elusive goal. Deadlines are frequent, stress is always present and people occasionally make mistakes. None of this makes it easy to work in a law office but when good morale is present, work is easier, people are more productive and stress is lessened. What can you do today, right after you read this article, to improve the moral in your law firm?
Before you read any farther, please understand that there are law offices where the office morale is negative because there are people working in those offices who have serious mental health issues, people who have alcohol and drug problems and people who are clinically depressed. These people may be partners, associates or office staff. None of these problems is unique to any job description. And if you are in a position where you may have the power and influence to change the situation, you won't be able to do it alone. Those situations require profession intervention and treatment and a willingness on the part of the patient to change. If you are not in a position of power or influence to change a toxic work place, you may need to consider whether it is good for your own mental health to continue to work in such a situation.
This article does not deal with those kinds of situations. This article assumes that the people in your law office are basically healthy but mildly dysfunctional or people who simply lack the skills to work effectively with others. This article also assumes that you have some power or influence to make some changes in your law office.
When you decide that your office needs to change, either by yourself if you are a solo practitioner or with your partners if you are in a law firm, you need to understand that you will have to make changes as well in your actions and your attitudes. And to make a real change, you need to be committed to that change.
The next twenty ideas, some complex and some simple, are some things that you will need to do to improve the morale in your office.
1. You need to be committed to change and you need to practice what you preach. If you or your partners aren't ready to change your office morale, don't do anything. To change requires commitment and constancy. If you begin a change process in which you don't believe or a change process to which you are only marginally committed, you are likely to drop it at the first obstacle. Then later, if you try and start another change process it will be much harder for staff to believe in you or the process. But once you start, you have to model the behavior that you want to develop. You must practice what you preach.
2. If you know that the negative attitude in your office is being generated and supported by nonproductive partners and staff members you need to confront them and you need to have the power to do so either because you are the boss or because you have the power from your partners. Work with them to develop a plan to improve their performance. If they need professional assistance to deal with their problems, help them secure it but they must be made aware that their previous negative activities and attitude will no longer be tolerated. Some will leave because they know that they can't succeed. Others will turn around and become productive and a few will make your life difficult, in the short term. Termination is a hard and painful process for everyone but it is also the test of leadership and good management in some situations. People who can't or won't work or who are destructive office morale need to be terminated. Your job is to make sure that these negative and nonproductive employees don't continue to work for you. You'll be surprised how quickly the atmosphere in an office can change when the person or persons in charge send a clear message about what is expected of employees both in their work and their attitude and what will not be tolerated.
3. Short of public executions, do something dramatic to show your partners, staff and associates that things are going to change for the better. It might be something as simple as holding a staff meeting and telling staff and associates that you and your partners have noticed the negativity and want to do something to eliminate this negative feeling. And maybe at this meeting you might want to find out from the staff and associates how they feel about the atmosphere in the office. But don't be surprised if no subordinate offers an opinion. In an office where there has been little trust among co-workers, only the courageous or the foolhardy are going to risk exposing themselves to potential abuse or discharge. Trust takes time to build. Be patient. Use this meeting to signal that times have changed for the better. Create some excitement around the proposed changes.
4. And after you have signaled a change, try to be consistent in supporting this new direction. There are a few simple things that you can do everyday that will go far to support this new positive spirit in the office. For instance, each morning greet everyone that you meet with a friendly "hello." You may not be a morning person or you may not even feel particularly chipper that day, but a friendly, well meant greeting can make your co-workers feel better and it may even improve your outlook.
5. At the beginning of a project or some complicated legal matter, assemble the people who will be involved with the matter, explain the matter, suggest a possible way to proceed and then ask for input. People are more likely to be motivated if they are involved in how the work gets done. This may be difficult at first since it requires a fair amount of trust. Help to create that trust by treating each suggestion with respect. Ensure that all criticisms or comments are focused on the idea, not the person proposing the idea.
6. Reward people who do a good job on something. The reward need not be expensive. A simple "Great job on that brief." or "Thanks for taking care of setting up that meeting or conference call or whatever." Be specific in your compliments.
7. Announce to the staff that you intend to review the personnel and office policies. Ask for their suggestions and input or convene a meeting to talk about the problems that you see with the present policies and some ideas that you have about changing them. Ask for other ideas from associates and staff members. Try to determine the least number of rules and policies that you can safely have to protect yourself and the organization and to communicate clear expectations to employees and create order in the work place. And once you have developed these rules and policies, make sure that every member of the firm has a copy and understands them.
8. Throw a pizza party the next time that the firm wins an important case.
9. Give each staff member or associate two hours off on their birthday.
10. Offer to pay the tuition costs for a course at the local junior college for any employee, whether the course is related to work or not, but pay the tuition only after the employee has completed the course.
11. Plan a staff retreat at a nice location and invite all employees to participate, at least for the first day of the retreat. While the substance of the retreat should be business-related, build in some time for people to mix together informally and get to know each other.
12. Delegate as many tasks as you can to other employees but make sure that the person to whom the task is delegated understands what is required of him or her. Their task is to find the best way to achieve the goal not figure out how you want the goal completed. Delegate work that is occasionally challenging.
13. Confront hard issues in a timely fashion. When you see unacceptable behavior in an associate or staff member, correct it as soon as feasible but remember that only praise should be given publicly. Admonitions should be given in private.
14. Reward initiative no matter how small it is.
15. Keep people informed about what is happening in the office, the good and the bad.
16. Create opportunities for people to express their opinions and to give suggestions for improvement.
17. Consider the possibility of flexible work hours for some employees who have special needs. You may find a staff person who likes to start at 10:00 a.m. and work until 7:00 p.m., the same hours as one of your partners. Think of flexible scheduling as a way of meeting the needs of the law firm as well as those of talented and competent partners, associates and staff members.
18. On an employee's first day in the office, provide him or her with a basket of fruit, flowers or some other appropriate "welcome" gift.
19. Take your secretary, paralegal and associates with whom you work most closely out to lunch once a month to give everyone a chance to socialize and to make sure that everyone on the team knows what's going on.
20. Ask your staff and associates what kind of things motivate them to work harder and do better and make sure that you provide the proper reward when that staff member or associates does an outstanding job.
There are many other things that you might do to reward and encourage good behavior and to build positive office morale. Like any undertaking in your law firm, these actions must contribute to the bottom line of the firm. A happy and productive law firm is not only a good place to work, a place that will attract talented and hard working associates but it also improves the revenue and attracts clients.
And finally, be a loyal and trusted employer. Care about your employees and your partners, help them when they need assistance or when times are rough because you will want them to do the same for you when you need assistance or when you are going through a rough time.
Get organized--use a checklist
By Paul J. Sullivan
Everyday, people in all walks of life use a checklist to get themselves going into their daily routines. For some, like an airline pilot, the checklist is quite rigid, and requires meticulous attention to detail. For others, it occurs subconsciously as they set out on their day feeling comfortable that all the necessary details are under control.
I manage a law office with 24 lawyers and two offices and for most of you reading this, there are probably many things I deal with that you will never have to. However, many of the things I encounter, I'm sure you do too. Because my job is to deal with the "non lawyer" functions of the office, my focus is on those. I would bet that for most of you, your focus in on the lawyer functions of your operations, and you only face these other issues when they become problems. My purpose then is to identify some items on my checklist, and make you aware of them with the hope that you may incorporate some of the more significant ones into yours.
As we go about our daily routines, it's the surprises-- the things we didn't anticipate that create the most disruption in our day. Preventing these should make the day less stressful and by incorporating some preventative measures as part of your daily checklist hopefully this can be accomplished.
The two most disruptive events in our office are equipment failures and shortage of staff due to illness, vacations etc. Having established contingency plans for these events limit the disruptions when they occur. My checklist then is to be sure all systems are functioning properly and secondly to find out if we have any staff shortages in any areas. If necessary, the contingency plan goes into effect where needed. When we are operating on contingency, then a subset of my checklist is to be sure we get back to normal as soon as possible or what we need to deal with the current circumstances until we return to normal.
Once I'm confident that all equipment is functioning properly and that all necessary areas are covered from a staff perspective, the next area of concern is the financial one. Because of the volume of checks that flow through our office, I find reconciling the bank account daily is best for me. This is accomplished through downloading prior day transactions from our Banks Web site. Since several of our clients pay electronically, this also gives me the opportunity to track these receipts on a timely basis.
Finally, I review our accounts receivable situation and our cash requirements list for the next few days to see if any extraordinary measures need to be taken. Once these functions are complete, the potential surprises are reduced, and I am ready to take on the day and deal with all the other responsibilities. My checklist can also vary based on the time of the month and circumstances the warrant special attention.
If I were asked to compose a generic checklist as well as some general suggestions for any small law office--based on my perspective, I would include the following things.
1. Have a contingency plan for staff shortages. If your key staff person is on vacation, arrange your schedule so you can concentrate on marketing efforts or other functions where the absence of this person has less impact on you. If that's not possible, then have a backup person available to fill in when necessary. Unscheduled absences are the biggest headache, and having a backup on call can sometimes help get you through these times.
2. Be sure your backups are working correctly. Have you tested your backups to be sure they are indeed backing up properly. Waiting until there's a major computer failure is not the time to discover this. Implement procedures as part of your backups to test the integrity of your backups. Also review which files are being backed up regularly, and feel confident these are all of the necessary ones.