Systems

November 14, 2018 by MollyandLaney

Hold Your Team Members Accountable…to Each Other

If you are micromanaging your employees, please stop! Now. It is literally debilitating to your law firm or business. Micromanagement prevents your business from evolving with the times. It thwarts innovation. It pushes strong team members out the door, hinders workflow, disempowers staff, closes communication channels, and turns “teamwork” into a four letter word.

Shall we continue?

Micromanagement could be the biggest nail in your firm or business’s coffin. Do you find it difficult to delegate responsibility to team members, taking an if-you-want-something-done-right-you-gotta-do-it-yourself approach instead? Do you have high employee turnover, or do you get the feeling that your team members are walking on eggshells around you? Are you the only person at your business responsible for making decisions? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, well, we’re sorry to say it, but…you might be a micromanager.

But there is hope! Many a micromanager has been able to turn their leadership technique around and create a workplace environment rich with empowerment. Here’s how:

1. Hire the right people. The #1 reason why leaders micromanage is because they don’t trust their team members. Hiring quality people who you truly believe are capable of delivering the caliber of work you expect will reduce the need to micromanage them. One of the best pieces of advice we were ever given was this: hire people who are better than you. Put your ego aside and think about that for a minute. Hiring people who are better than you only stands to benefit your firm in the long run.

2. Hold your team members accountable…to each other. Nothing ensures quality control more so than peer pressure. Allowing your staff to provide anonymous feedback about the performance of other team members and departments will create a sense of ownership, and can help you implement systems that keep your team satisfied and productive.

3. Be clear about what you expect. If your staff doesn’t know what you expect, then how can they work towards it? So many times we see micromanagement emerge as a response to poorly communicated expectations. Be clear, give your team specific benchmarks and objectives, and eliminate the need to micromanage them!

4. Empower your employees. Providing your team members with the freedom to engage—meaningfully—in decision-making processes will help them “own their role” at your firm. They’ll be willing to go above and beyond because they know you won’t be sweeping up behind them, changing everything that they’ve done. They’ll be excited about their job, and will take the success (or failure) of your business personally.

5. Recognize your own bad behavior. So the saying goes, the first step is admitting. Once you recognize your own micromanaging tendencies, you can begin to change them. Working with a management consultant or executive coach can be a huge help for those with the tendency to micromanage.

No matter how you look at it, micromanagement is a huge problem that needs to be stopped before it destroys your firm. You want—no, you need—empowered employees who aren’t afraid to step up and lead. Forget about the robots who need to be told what to do, and how to do it. Hire cream-of-the crop-employees, empower them, and you’ll find there is no need to micromanage anything (or anyone) anymore.

Schedule a FREE Discovery Session

Is your firm or business struggling with micromanagement? Are you confident that you have hired amazing people? Are you confident that you have communicated your process for holding your team accountable…to each other? Maybe it’s time to hire your next (or first) superstar hire and empower them to take ownership of your business. Hiring & Empowering Solutions specializes in legal staffing, and offers the only Team Empowerment Academy (TM) in the country. Schedule a 30-minute discovery session with our co-founder, Molly Hall, today. Find out how we can support the evolution of your firm, and ensure its viability today and tomorrow.

November 1, 2018 by MollyandLaney

Why Employee Training & Development Programs Don’t Offer an Immediate Solution

Small law firms are investing more than ever in employee training and development, seeking to better engage their employees and keep them invested in their jobs for the long-term. Don’t get us wrong, employee training and development is hugely important to any small or solo law practice. But we see it time and time again: law firm leadership identifies a learning opportunity or behavioral problem and thinks that investing in an employee training and development program will offer an immediate solution.

But an employee training and development program is only as effective as a law firm’s leadership. If your firm’s leadership has not clarified which groups and individuals are responsible for making certain decisions, they are negating your training efforts. If authority has been delegated in a silo—and only at the very tippity-top of that silo—you are impeding your own team training efforts. If you have not outlined a measurable way to hold your employees accountable for decision-making, then you are standing in your own way. And you need to step aside.

Employee training and development is a highly-effective solution for a lot of traditional business problems: it helps keep balls in the air rather than constantly dropping; it snuffs out office drama; it streamlines operations and keeps your firm running like a well-oiled machine; it draws out each employee’s superpowers; and it empowers your employees to step up and lead rather than await orders and execute as dictated.

But if, at the core of your firm, you’re not meeting these three requirements, there isn’t a training and development program in the world that could help you:

1. An internal system that is aligned with your training & development goals. So, you want your team to feel more ownership of the firm and its performance—you want them to make confident decisions and run with their intrepreneurial ideas. But is your firm structured in a way that enables this level of employee empowerment? Or do you have a managerially “tall” organization, where each layer of leadership is required to approve decisions? Is access to important information limited to certain members of your leadership team? If employees keep running into red tape and feel that they need to ask permission to make even the tiniest decision, how can they be empowered to become leaders?

2. Leaders who are 100% committed to making positive changes at your firm. You’ve taken the first step and figured out the root cause of dysfunction at your firm. Now, are your leaders willing to make changes that solve internal problems and open the doors to an effective employee training and development program? If leaders aren’t ready to relinquish control of your firm’s decision-making processes and trust that their newly-empowered team would be capable of calling the shots, then training and development efforts will be moot.

3. Find solutions, not bandaids. There is the case of one particular firm leader whose team kept reporting back to her that they were stressed out and overworked. With the best of intentions, she rolled out a mindfulness workshop at her firm. This would reduce stress, right? But even though her team reported back that the mindfulness workshop was “interesting”…it still didn’t reduce their stress. The problem is that, to reduce stress, the root cause of that stress needs to be addressed. The mindfulness workshop was just a bandaid—not a long-term solution.

Implementing an employee training and development program under the wrong conditions is a waste of time and money. If you’re unsure about the conditions at your law firm, we’d love the opportunity to connect and assess your situation. Depending on where you are, our Team Empowerment Solution might be the perfect fit for your firm’s leadership and employees alike. Schedule a free discovery session with Molly and find out if your firm is ready to empower its employees and equip them with the tools they need to grow your business.

October 24, 2018 by MollyandLaney

Your Qualified, Invested Employee Just Quit…Here Are 9 Reasons Why

Attorneys, listen up. This may comes as a surprise, but your employees do not need your paycheck. Your old war cry of, “It’s so hard to find good help,” has shifted dramatically in favor of employees. Now you may find yourself crying, “It’s so hard to find ANY help…good, bad or the other!” The unemployment rate is momentously low at only 3.9%—with average unemployment rates of 1.9% for attorneys and 3.1% for paralegals, just to add salt to the wound. And recruiting top talent is harder than ever! Gone are the days of publishing an ad and getting hundreds of resumes. Unless you have a giant pay-per-click budget of $1500+ per ad, and can run that ad on multiple recruiting platforms, chances are you’re not going to reach many qualified candidates. And, even then, you have to sit by the phone like a professional recruiter because, if you wait three days to reply to an applicant, they’ll already have multiple offers in hand.

Yes, more than ever employees are in the driver seat and are interviewing your firm, more so than your firm is interviewing them. The quality of the questions coming from the employee’s side have never been richer. They want to know about the firms values, what happened to the employees who came before them, the company’s financial security, and accessibility to leadership, supervisors and trainers, etc. They want to know what the employee manual says, what the training process looks like, what the firm’s quarterly goals are, what the evaluation and raise process is. And the #1 question: what are the uniform communication verticals. They want to know about the management of the firm; their expectations and values.

Then, only after those questions are answered, come the money, benefits and perks inquiries. Shockingly, this is secondary after your potential new hire knows who they will working for. In the words of one job candidate, “The money is secondary after I hear about the communication styles, the availability of management, and their training processes. Regardless of the starting pay and vague promises for ‘opportunity’ and ‘work/life balance,’ if the leaders are unapproachable and don’t see their employees as the greatest asset in their business, I’ll pass.” Again, these are a job candidate’s words.

But it’s not all doom and gloom! If you are willing to be a great employer—and believe in giving your team time, attention and consistent feedback—then you are in mega luck!

Let us try to paint a very real picture for you. We helped a very busy law firm hire a new Legal Assistant. The firm was too busy to focus on hiring—they actually had three new positions available. We started with the first open positions, and then once a new hire was in place, we quickly moved to the second position. The firm was also too busy to schedule the 30-day onboarding process calls included in our Smart Hire Solution program fee. Our COO reminded them several times to get their 30-day onboarding and goal-setting call in the books. As quickly as it was scheduled, it would be cancelled due to “emergencies and crises in the firm.” We finally got the 30-day review (note: we were never able to schedule an initial goal-setting call) in the books, 45-days into the new hire’s start date. We conducted the review call on video—body language says everything—and there were 150 red flags in the managing partner’s, team leader’s and new employee’s body languages. But we ended the call with everyone claiming they were excited, empowered, and ready to the hit the ground running for the next 30-days, and that they couldn’t wait to declare their success in our 60-day review.

One week later, we got a call from the employee. “Molly, I just quit and wanted to provide you with very specific reasons why, so I can support you in finding the best candidate for the working conditions at this firm.”

So here they are. Nine reasons your qualified, invested employee just quit (and what NOT to do if you’d like to retain your employees):

1. Unavailable, unapproachable leadership. The candidate strongly communicated that, “The attorney’s hourly rate is $450 hour. If you needed to talk to her, you’d better be able to go back to your desk and bill the amount of revenue she lost while you were talking to her.”
2. Frustration about the firm’s mission & vision statement.
3. Lack of a structured training process
4. Inconsistent communication.
5. Existing employees are disengaged.
6. Undelivered promises. “We spent more time apologizing, backtracking and making things up to everybody—clients, referral sources and employees. We couldn’t get a win. We never got in the car at the end of our day or week feeling victorious, like, ‘wow, we over delivered.’”
7. Absence of recognition; feeling undervalued and under-appreciated.
8. Lack of office culture. It feels like a factory filled with walking robots.
9. No joy or fun to engage employees on an emotional level.

But here is the good news: if you can make certain you are not making the above nine mistakes and have thoroughly communicated the open position in your employment ads, interviewing, onboarding process, you will land the most qualified, empowered employees that will not only work long hours and protect and defend your time as a business owner, but they will never, ever leave—no matter how much money is waved at them. And this is especially important now, with the current shallow talent pool who have recruiters inboxing them daily with messages saying, “Are you sure you’re happy? I have the most perfect job for you!” Yes, this is actually happening…

Schedule a Free Discovery Session

If you need help implementing a recruiting strategy and revolving-door-proof employee hiring and training plan, schedule a free 30-minute discovery session with Molly. We can discuss the position of your small law firm, determine your recruiting and staffing needs, and identify areas of opportunity for your firm’s culture and leadership development. Click the button below to schedule your free discovery session!

September 25, 2018 by MollyandLaney

Why You Lost That Great Employee: Two Secrets to Employee Retention

You’ve gone through the hassle of hiring a new employee. You’ve reviewed overwhelming stacks of resumes, conducted countless interviews (most of them a complete waste of time), and made a final decision. You’ve invested time and energy training this person, developing them to the point where they can finally begin to free you up…

…and then they quit.

Why does this happen? And no, it’s not any of the reasons your employee tries to convince you of: it’s not that the job is a poor fit; it’s not that they’re unqualified for the position; it’s not because their spouse or their kid or their dog needs more attention. Why does this really happen?

Let us share a brief anecdote that perfectly explains why you’re losing great employees. We hired Beth as the key assistant to our lead entrepreneur. She started while the entrepreneur was on vacation, as that gave us a week to train her on the client management system and prepare her to hit the ground running upon his return. We expected that, when he returned from vacation, Beth would be up and running and in a position from which she could actually support him.

Beth was fantastic. She was a fast learner with a positive attitude. But the day after the entrepreneur returned from vacation, she quit. “I just can’t work with him,” she explained. “He’s nice, but I have no idea what he is saying, what he wants…I just can’t keep up!” This is what so many great employees try to say, but don’t. Fortunately, Beth’s honesty allowed us to stop and restart her training experience, and gave us the opportunity to revisit two important secrets to employee development and retention.

Secret #1: Kolbe

If you’ve used Kolbe, you love Kolbe. It’s a fun exercise that helps people understand how they operate. However, a valuable use for Kolbe is oftentimes overlooked: it can help team members understand where their (and each other’s) point of overwhelm and shut down is, thus preventing unrealistic expectations and miscommunication amongst teams. We would safely estimate that 99% of office communication problems are because of a lack of awareness in Kolbe.

Secret #2: The Gap® (The Strategic Coach® Concept)

The Gap® is a concept by the Strategic Coach® that explains how we, as individuals, become stressed out or discouraged…stuck in the gap between where we are, and where we want to be. When you’re on-boarding a new employee, it’s important for them to understand that it’s completely normal to be discouraged and overwhelmed by the learning process that lies ahead of them. The Gap® also provides specific strategies to help new employees along their journey, such as training plans with explicit target dates, etc. This is an effective tool for keeping new employees on track while reducing the amount of overwhelm they feel along the way.

In our years of experience helping boutique law firms and small businesses find, recruit and hire top-notch talent, we’ve found these two concepts to be crucial. Our Smart Hire Solution™ process leverages the power of Kolbe, encouraging all team members and leaders to review each other’s Kolbe and determine what it means for each person, in each role.

The hiring process is time-consuming, energy-draining, and expensive…especially just to have your new hire quit on you! Implementing one of both of these employee retention secrets can help prevent this from happening, and ensure a more seamless on-boarding process.

If you’d like to talk to us about any problems your company or firm is experiencing through its hiring and training processes, we encourage you to schedule a complimentary 30-minute discovery session with one of our lead management consultants.

September 5, 2018 by MollyandLaney

Don’t Worry, We’ve Got These Common But Unexpected Legal Staffing Challenges Under Control…

Running a small or solo law practice presents a multitude of challenges that are unique to this particular industry. Most lawyers, when branching out on their own, expect to come face-to-face with adversity on all fronts: building a clientele, finding affordable office space, implementing a compliant IT infrastructure, general operations management, and—of course—staffing their firm with support staff and lawyers. But there are a lot of challenges that entrepreneurial lawyers simply aren’t prepared for.

With over 20 years of experience in legal recruiting and staffing, we can say this with confidence: there are more challenges in this area of small law management than you may think. And your firm’s success is directly dependent on your ability to overcome these challenges.

Some common (but oftentimes unexpected) legal staffing challenges include:

Technology: Technology is always advancing, seemingly everyday. But it’s not the technology itself that is the challenge: most small law firms will leverage an IT system that enables them to produce documents, perform research and file court documents in an efficient manner. The challenge with technology is deciding which members of your team should be trained to use it! Lawyers may expect paralegals or support staff to deal with paperwork, even though it may make more sense for them to learn the systems themselves.

Legal Recruiting: What is your firm doing to find and recruit top paralegals or lawyers? Going to tier 1 law schools and fighting for attention alongside bigger and more-attractive-on-paper law firms? Stop wasting your time—at Hiring & Empowering Solutions, our Smart Hire Solution™ process leverages the power of a database that shows us when top lawyers or support staff leave their jobs, enabling us to act quickly to recruit the best-of-the-best team members for your firm. Recruiting is time consuming, and time is money: partnering with a legal staffing company like ours can free up your firm’s leaders to focus on what they do best: client relationship management and new business generation.

Employee Training & Development: Great, your firm has a team of talented people who are passionate about law and work well together. But, especially at a small law firm, you need your team to have a more well-rounded set of business skills. You need them to be at least a little competent in basically all areas of running a business. Employee training & development programs, like our Team Empowerment Academy, allow small firms to equip their teams with the tools and techniques they need to truly manage a business. Our program is 100% virtual, with weekly master classes and a series of over 200 workshops designed to empower your team members and turn them into effective leaders.

Employee Retention: Have you thought about how your law firm is going to keep its staff happy, year after year? Most small firms can’t offer the huge salaries, bonus programs and benefits packages that larger firms can offer. But we’ve found that team members are sometimes even more excited about non-monetary benefits: more paid time off, the flexibility to work from home, even a special parking spot to thank them for a job well done. If you’re not expressing appreciation for your team, another firm will. Don’t let that happen.

Outsourced Legal Services vs. Full-Time: Your firm landed more cases than usual—maybe a big fee case, or a case that you’ve “sorta” marketed and actually landed. Great news, right? Not necessarily. In our experience, most attorneys freeze, go into analysis paralysis mode, feel they need to sign up for a legal-technical course to get every possible fact pattern, and spin their wheels for weeks before they actually start working on the case. By the time they finally begin work, they’ve lost credibility and integrity with the client, and are feeling stressed they they’re going to be fired and asked for a refund, or worse, that the client will file a grievance to the bar. So, how are you actually planning to get the job done? Is outsourcing to a credible service the best approach, or should your firm go all-in and hire a new attorney, paralegal or legal assistant? Outsourced legal services may be appealing for what you perceive to be a temporary position, but the right person can grow a “one and done” case into something much, much bigger (and more profitable)! If you’re on the fence between outsourced legal services and a full-time employee, schedule a free consultation and we’ll brainstorm the best solution with you!

Whether you’re just beginning the process of going out on your own, or you already run a small or solo law practice, there will always be unexpected staffing challenges waiting to take you by surprise. The good news is that Hiring & Empowering Solutions can help with most of them. There is no challenge that your small law firm can’t overcome with a little help from our team of legal staffing experts. Contact us today to talk about whatever challenges your firm is currently facing—chances are, we can help.

Contact Hiring & Empowering Solutions

As legal staffing experts, we’ve learned the most effective way for leaders and employees to navigate the challenges of running a small or solo law firm. We offer staffing solutions and employee training and development programs, designed for employees and business leaders alike. We can help your firm become more efficient, and more profitable. Contact us and learn how.