Virtually any company or industry should do all they can to make their employees feel happy and comfortable. That’s true for tiny mom-and-pop businesses, and it’s true for huge conglomerates like Amazon or Google.
In this article, we’ll talk about things you can do to make your law firm’s culture better. If you take these actions, your employees should thank you for it as the law firm’s owner or operator.
Enable Working from Home
You can create a great law firm culture by allowing your employees to work from home whenever possible. Telecommuting is popular in many industries, and law firms should not be an exception.
Some workers can’t do everything from home. You will likely need to maintain a physical location where your clients can visit and meet with you, and you’ll need certain employees to staff that locale.
However, you’ll probably have certain employees who can work from home, at least part of the time.
For instance, maybe you have IT workers who don’t need to be in your physical offices every day.
If so, let them work from home when they can. They’re more likely to enjoy their work that way, and you encourage brand loyalty if you don’t make every employee come into the office when they can easily do the same work from home.
Have Clearly Defined Roles
You should ensure that everyone knows their job and sticks to it. You hire someone and tell them a particular job they’ll need to do. They should show up for work every day, knowing how that day will look.
You should not try to assign work to people that’s not a part of their job description. Maybe you can occasionally ask them to give you a hand with something that’s not generally part of their purview, but you should not make a habit of it.
Remember that everyone in your office staff should have clearly defined roles based on their unique qualifications. You would not ask someone with IT training to do janitorial work, for instance. A clerk might expect to get coffee for you, but your law partner wouldn’t appreciate you asking that of them.
Just because someone works for you, that does not mean you should ask them to do something that requires them to stray out of their lane. If everyone knows their job and sticks to it rigidly, that should help the firm function flawlessly.
Implement a Suggestion Box
You might feel like you’re the perfect boss and running the ideal company. Maybe you come to work every day thinking you’ve created a culture and atmosphere conducive to openness and honesty.
It might surprise you that not everyone feels the same way all the time. Maybe you like working for you, for the most part, but they would like to change a key detail here or there.
However, they might worry about asking you to change something because they feel like you’ll take it the wrong way. As a good boss, though, you should welcome constructive feedback regarding better ways for you to operate the firm.
To allow each employee to use their voice without any fear that you won’t approve, you can set up a confidential suggestion box. This tried-and-true method has existed for many decades, and it works for all kinds of businesses, not just law firms.
Every week, you can read through the suggestions in the box to see if there’s anything there you might want to consider. You don’t have to follow each suggestion, but you can at least look at what’s there and take the firm’s temperature that way.
No After Hours Contact Except in Genuine Emergencies
Law firms need to do all kinds of things for their clients, and sometimes, they must accomplish those tasks very quickly. Because of that, you might want to reach out to employees after hours.
You can do that, but you should only eat into an employee’s personal time if it’s a genuine emergency. If it’s something that can wait till the next day, don’t contact your workers.
Understand that if you do contact them, that also means you’re disrupting their routine. They cannot spend time with their loved ones doing recreational activities during their downtime if you’re constantly calling, texting, or emailing them.
You can tell your employees you’re committed to letting them do their own thing when they’re away from the office and not on the clock. They’ll appreciate that. If you ever encounter a genuine emergency, they’ll respond better to it if this isn’t the fifth time this week you’ve tried to get them to work after regular business hours.
Talk to Your Workers About Your Vision Statement
When you hire someone new, it helps to talk about what you expect from them and what you envision for the company. You probably have a notion regarding what you want from the firm and what your clients and would-be clients expect from it.
You likely want a certain mindset from your workers as well. If you explain to them on day one what you require of them and what they can do to fit in, that’s helpful.
If they feel they can get along okay based on what you say you want from them, they will have no issue signing up with you and getting to work. If you don’t explain what you expect from them, though, they might feel surprised if their work ethic does not match your own.
You can also lead by example. For instance, if you want your workers to put in very long hours, but you’re not willing to do that yourself, they probably won’t respect you.
If you implement all of these suggestions, you should create a better atmosphere for all of your workers, from the partners down to the lowliest mail clerk. You can always focus on SEO like link building services if you’re trying to generate more interest in your firm as well.
