Hiring & Empowering Solutions

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“Employee Retention,” “Loyalty” and Other Highly Misunderstood (But Also Highly Important) HR Concepts

employee retention and loyaltySome say that employee retention is a thing of the past. That employees have no loyalty anymore. And with statistics in favor of these beliefs—an incredible 3.4 million American workers left their jobs this past April—it’s hard to argue. Maybe loyalty is dead and employee retention is an archaic HR concept with no place in the modern workforce.

Or maybe businesses are just going about it the wrong way.

Maybe the leadership at your small law firm or other business is unknowingly driving employees into the arms of another employer. Failure to recognize employees as humans who require connection and value contribution —creatures who need communication and to know they contribute value to your team and your clients—is the #1 employee retention issue we have come across in our 20 years of legal staffing experience.

We also continue to run into the old “we-pay-them-and-thus-they-will-remain-loyal” mentality, which is completely unrealistic. In fact, jumping ship and swimming over to another firm generally results in a 30% pay increase for the employee. So forget about buying loyalty. It has to be earned instead.

So how can your firm earn the loyalty of its people? How can you improve employee retention, even in a world where job hoping is the norm? We have two words for you:

Connection and communication.

The easiest way to integrate connection and communication into your human resources strategy is to work it into your calendar. Here are suggestions for weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual communications that can increase employee retention and loyalty:

Weekly Check-Ins
Give each of your employees a 30-minute touch base every week. Recognize their efforts and accomplishments, provide them with constructive feedback on whatever isn’t working, and discuss the need for any additional training or development they may need to keep moving forward. Stay on top of these three simple things and we promise it’ll make a world of difference!

Monthly Lunch Date
Treat each of your employees to a casual lunch, outside of the office, every month. Leaving the office puts you both on neutral ground, which opens the door to creating a personal connection with your employees. While you don’t want to become best friends with your team members, it’s important to show empathy—it will build the morale of your team and, ultimately, improve performance. Remember: employees are loyal to leaders; not jobs. Developing a personal and empathetic connection can work wonders for employee retention and loyalty.

Quarterly Outings
As important as building strong one-on-one relationships with your team is building a strong, cohesive team! Once per quarter, plan a company outing—a BBQ, an escape room, go-kart racing, or even something as simple as dinner at a trendy new restaurant. This will strengthen the bond between you and your team members, and build loyalty.

Annual Reviews
Don’t roll your eyes. We don’t believe in the old, outdated idea of a stuffy and uncomfortable annual review where the employee comes prepared with a list of accomplishments and a request for a pay increase, and the leader retorts with a list of the employee’s shortcomings and other reasons why they deserve less of a pay increase. In fact, we’ve written extensively about how ineffective employee reviews really are in the article, ‘Say Goodbye to the Employee Evaluation and Hello to Employee Empowerment.’ The truth is, if you stick with the weekly, monthly and quarterly activities outlined above, you won’t need to engage in the old school song-and-dance of the stereotypical annual review. Rather, you’ll be able to focus on discussing growth opportunities—empowering your employees with new opportunities for professional development—and having a productive back-and-forth in which the employee feels open enough to express their opinion and the leader is enlightened enough to actually listen.

There are seemingly countless articles and statistics that say employee retention and loyalty are nothing but a memory these days, but we beg to differ. Understanding that employees are people—just like you and me—who thrive on connection and communication, will enable your firm to keep its top people happy and engaged, which will, in turn, lead to happy clients and an ever-increasing bottom line.

Improve Your Connection & Communication Skills Today!

Now that you know how important it is to invest time and energy into your people, it’s time to learn how to effectively connect and communicate with them. Download our White Paper, ‘8 Keys to an Empowering Conversation’ for free today, and get started on increasing employee retention and loyalty!

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Be a Leader, Not a Friend: The Importance of Setting Boundaries at Your Boutique Firm

leadership small solo law firmWe know how challenging it can be, standing at the helm of a small law firm. Never mind the whole buiding-a-business-and-being-awesome-at-delivering-legal-advice-and-services thing. Leading a team poses a whole new series of obstacles in a small solo law firm setting, but the success of your firm depends on your ability to navigate those challenges as seamlessly as possible.

And rule #1 of effective team leadership at a boutique law firm is this: set boundaries between you and your employees.

We’re not saying to be cold towards your employees. And we’re not saying to be all business, all the time. It’s important to cultivate something of a relationship with each member of your team—knowing what’s going on with their kid’s baseball team, or checking in on an ailing spouse. This shows compassion and empathy—it makes your team members feel important, acknowledged and appreciated—and is imperative for fostering loyalty amongst your staff.

But when the nature of relationship crosses from acquaintanceship into BFF-land—when you cross that very important boundary—well, you’ve gone a step (or two) too far. Getting too close to your employees can backfire, big time. Here’s how:

1. Dropped balls and missed opportunities: When you’re besties with your team, they may get lax about following up on new business opportunities, even when you basically spoon-fed them to your employees. They feel there will be no consequences for the lack of follow-up. They leave it to you to pick up the slack, trusting that you’ll understand because you know how stressed out they are about their problems at home/parenting woes/messy divorce/dating dilemmas/insert other personal problem here.

2. Lack of respect. Get too buddy-buddy with your colleagues and just wait to be undermined by your team. While healthy collaboration is great, when your authority and decision-making skills are called into question, chances are you’ve crossed the too-close boundary…

3. Damaged loyalty. The complete opposite of what you were probably trying to accomplish by getting super close with your team, right? When your employee’s feel like you’re more of a friend than a leader, they’ll truly believe that you want them to take their show on the road to take advantage of a great job offer from a competitor.

4. Constructive feedback feels more like backstabbing. If giving honest and necessary feedback has become a challenge…you guessed it, you’ve gone too far into the friend-zone. Being able to honestly and accurately measure performance is key, not just to the growth of your boutique firm, but also to the development of your team members!

We understand the desire to create a close-knit team at your boutique law firm, but there is a way to balance professionalism and congeniality. Aim to be a mentor and champion—not a manager, and definitely not a friend.

Starting a boutique law firm is filled with challenges—many of them expected: building your clientele, marketing your firm, hiring a team, etc. But resisting the urge to get too-close-for-comfort with your people, especially in a setting as intimate as that of a boutique law, firm can be an unexpected obstacle that can leave you with a hard-to-motivate team, with a lack of respect and a sense of entitlement.

Be a More Effective Leader, Now!

For more advice on how to be an effective leader, take advantage of our free e-Book download: Intrapreneurs in an Entrepreneur’s World: How to Empower Your Team to Step Up and Lead. The bestselling book is filled with advice to help leaders at small law firms just like yours to take their good teams and turn them into extraordinary teams.

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Are Employee Bonus and Incentive Programs a Thing of the Past? They Should Be…

employee bonus and incentive programsIt sounds like a no-brainer: pay your employees based on their performance. Provide merit-based pay raises, or incentivize your team with a bonus system for reaching short-term performance goals. Makes sense, right? Employees will go the extra mile for your firm, aiming for that raise or bonus. And those who don’t perform, well, they don’t see a bigger paycheck. The money your firm saves by not doling out raises to underperforming team members will fund the merit-based pay raise or bonus system for your rockstar employees.

But as logical as that all sounds, unfortunately, business just don’t work like that.

In a recent Willis Towers Watson poll, only 32% of managers feel their payroll programs are “effective at differentiating pay based on individual performance.” Only 50% believe that financial incentives impact how well their team members perform. And only 20% agree that a merit-based pay raise system drives a higher level of performance at their firms or companies.

Yet, firms continue to throw money at these highly ineffective, highly disappointing programs.

So, why do they fail? Well, firm leadership has a hard time saying no when an underperforming employee asks for a raise. This swallows up cash, which, in turn, takes money away from the pool of money set aside for the employees who are truly earning their bonus. And top performing people, well, they don’t really love working their tails off for a skimpy payout.

What should your firm do instead? Start by recognizing the fact that money is not a primary motivational factor for most employees. Rather, employees want to be recognized for their hard work, thanked with flexible work time, and offered opportunities for growth and advancement. And none of that negatively impacts your budget. But we can promise it’ll positively impact your bottom line.

Here are 10 ways to motivate your employees—without implementing an ineffective merit-based pay program:

1. Empower your employees: Give them control and allow them to make decisions that impact their professional world, even if that decision is something as simple as choosing the topic for the next weekly team meeting. Offer continuous training and development, so they have the chance to master their field, or learn a new area of business.

2. Recognize hard work: Offer sincere and specific praise, whether that be a shout out at your next team meeting, or a simple thank you note. Be sure to mention specific metrics…

3. Turn your team into a community: Your people need to feel connected to your business; that they have a purpose and make a difference. But arguably as important is making sure your team members feel connected to each other. Engage in team-building activities—company outings, playing games on a break, etc.

4. Ask your employees for input: How do they want to be incentivized? What motivates them? Just ask!

5. Show genuine interest in your people: As a leader, you don’t want to be best friends with your team, but getting to know them on a personal level shows them that you take genuine interest in them…in turn, they won’t want to let you down.

6. Reward your team with flexibility: More than money, employees are motivated to earn additional time off, or time to work from home. It enables them to maintain a healthy work-life balance, which reduces stress and gives them a chance to work when they’re at their most productive.

7. Stay in touch: 24/7 communication is overwhelming, sure, but staying in touch via email and text allows you to step in and offer guidance when it is needed, rather than after the fact. That gives your employee a chance to succeed out of the gates, rather than bomb…but learn a lesson post-failure.

8. Don’t underestimate employee perks: The parking spot right by the front entrance of your firm, a longer lunch break, time to work on a personal project—these kinds of perks can result in higher job satisfaction, which will impact productivity and your bottom line!

9. Volunteer with your team: Yeah, it’s great for PR. But it’s even better for building your team and increasing loyalty. Let your employees have a say when deciding where or how to make a difference in your community. Firms with strong community involvement and philanthropic programs are better able to attract and retain top employees, just saying.

10. Offer training and development: Many of our clients take advantage of our Team Empowerment Program, which is a virtual employee training and development program with weekly master classes, as well as over 200 tools and techniques to help advance the breadth of an individual’s professional skill set. Perfect for leaders and employees alike, programs like this benefit your firm in two ways: the skills your team members learn will benefit you firm and your employees will feel engaged and empowered.

Most small law firms don’t have the budget for a big bonus or incentive program, and that’s not a bad thing since those programs are mostly ineffective anyway! Motivating your employees with these not-budget-breaking tactics will undoubtedly improve your bottom line and ensure your firm’s performance continues to improve over the years.

Contact Hiring & Empowering Solutions

Want to learn more about our Team Empowerment Academy and how it could help develop your firm’s talent? Want to find out how we can help recruit top talent from firms who are paying out paltry bonuses because they can’t figure out how to move away from an outdated merit-based pay system? Contact us and speak with an expert consultant today!

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Say Goodbye to the Employee Evaluation and Hello to Employee Empowerment

say goodbye employee evaluations

Whether you’re a boss or an employee, there is no phrase more cringe-inducing than, “employee evaluation.” Bosses dread the impending pay raise request, employees fret about whatever they’re about to be reprimanded for, and the truth…is that both the boss and the employee have good reason to cringe.

Boutique law firms and other small businesses don’t typically have a process for how and when raises are issued. Employees seeking a raise have one option: to ask for one. And the least invasive way to start this awkward discussion is via an employee review. So they ask their boss to schedule one. Cue the cringing.

Likewise, bosses hate having to step away from revenue-producing activities to discuss problems with their employees—but when the need arises, so does the need for an employee evaluation. Ugh.

So it makes sense that neither a boss nor an employee would want to engage in a formal employee evaluation. And think about what an employee review actually accomplishes: it’s a conversation about pay raises, or about reprimanding an employee for something that happened in the past. Come to think of it, it’s not really a conversation at all—it’s more like a guarded, hide-all-your-cards kind of meeting where both participants are on the defensive. Even best case scenario, the conversation stays amicable but is filled with fluff that accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to talk about your employee’s growth potential, and set long-term goals for their performance and professional development?

We say, down with employee evaluations! Down with this archaic and damaging practice that stunts entrepreneurship and drives innovation to a halt. What good comes of asking your employee to answer silly questions, like rating his or her timeliness? Why not save your time and energy and just address issues as they arise, rather than let them fester until one of you requests an employee evaluation? Under no circumstances should an employee ever hear negative feedback for the first time during a formal review. If they don’t know they’re doing something wrong, how can they fix it? And why would you prolong the process of fixing these problems until their review comes around?

And employees shouldn’t be asking for a pay raise in a formal “employee evaluation” setting, either! If the boss is just waiting for an employee to drop the “I want a raise” bomb, they’re only hearing a build-up to the employee’s request, rather than from a productive perspective that could open the door to progressive dialogue.

There is literally no place for employee reviews at boutique law firms or small businesses. The time to banish them was yesterday. Employee evaluations need, need, NEED to be replaced with employee empowerment and engagement. Conversations that drive the development of growth plans, that support an employee’s passions and goals, and that simultaneously meet the current and future demands of a business.

Make Moves Towards Productivity & Growth—for Your Whole Team!

When you’re ready to say goodbye to the employee evaluation and usher in a new era of employee empowerment, download our free workbook, ‘8 Keys to an Empowering Conversation’ and start making the shift from old school, ineffective business practices to new and innovative practices that propel your firm or business to the next level.

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How Quitters Can Be a Big Win for Your Law Firm: Taking Advantage of the New Trend in Job Hopping

legal hiring opportunity job hopping We’re gonna start by throwing some statistics at you: 3.4 million American workers quit their jobs in April, versus the only 1.7 million who were laid off; the unemployment rate is 3.8%, the lowest this country has seen in 18 years; and those who have switched jobs over the course of the past year have earned, on average, a 30% pay increase.

What does this all mean? Well, it’s an employee’s job market—and they know it. Workers, with a new faith inspired by the strength of the U.S. economy, are quitting their jobs at a rapid rate, trusting that newer, bigger, better opportunities will arise. And arise those opportunities do…

What does this all mean for your boutique law firm? Two things: (1.) the workforce is flooded with highly experienced, highly talented and highly unemployed talent—and that talent is up for grabs (hint hint) and (2.) keeping your own highly experienced and highly talented lawyers, paralegals and support staff highly employed is going to require a bit more of your attention and focus.

Finding, Recruiting & Hiring Quitters: The Smart Hire Solution™ Process

Our Smart Hire Solution™ is literally the perfect strategy for capitalizing on new HR opportunities as they arise. With our Smart Hire Solution, you can focus your time on revenue, opportunity and lead generating activities while we do the dirty work of finding amazing talent, recruiting them, and getting the ball rolling on the interviewing and hiring processes. Then, if all goes well, we’ll even help with onboarding your new hire, ensuring that they mesh with your corporate culture and are given the tools they need to be effective leaders with a direct—and positive—impact on your bottom line. We use an advanced database that alerts us when lawyers, paralegals and legal support staff leave their jobs, so we can act quickly and begin the recruiting process before other talent-hungry law firms even have a chance.

With top legal talent becoming available at a faster rate than ever, your law firm needs to capitalize. If your firm doesn’t take advantage, your competitors will. Don’t let that happen.

Keeping Your Law Firm’s Talent Happily In Place

You may be wondering how, as a boutique law firm, you can compete with a major firm if they come sniffing around your top talent. Maybe you can’t pay the same salary as a nationally-recognized firm can pay. But that’s okay. We actually wrote extensively about some creative ways in which small law firms can attract and retain top talent in this article, ‘How to Compete with Major Firms When It Comes to Attracting Top Talent for Your Boutique Law Firm.’

Today’s employee isn’t just looking for that massive salary anymore. Sometimes feeling a personal connection to a firm’s mission, having the flexibility to work from home, or being able to take a few extra days of vacation is more attractive than the cash being thrown at them by big law. If you’re offering value-added benefits like this to your team of lawyers and paralegals, then you’re on the right track.

Another great way to keep your lawyers happy and engaged is by offering continuous training and development. Many of our clients take advantage of our Team Empowerment Academy, which is a virtual training program that offers weekly master classes and over 200 other tools and techniques to further develop your team. You’ll keep your people engaged, and they’ll learn new skills that will help grow your business. A total win-win.

The bottom line is that the job market is changing, and now is the time to act. If you can scoop up the top talent that is becoming available while keeping your current team happily engaged, your law firms stands to succeed exponentially in this ever-strengthening economy.

Contact Hiring & Empowering Solutions

If you have questions about our Smart Hire Solution™ process or the Team Empowerment Academy, use the brief form below to contact us and a member of our legal recruiting team will contact you shortly. We’re happy to bounce some ideas around and identify some areas of opportunity for your firm or business.