Employee survey reveals support staff dissatisfied
The ;Lawyer’s first employee engagement survey, conducted ;by YouGovCentaur, shows a chasm between lawyers and business services staff, with the latter feeling undervalued, underpaid and out of the loop.
An ;overwhelming majority of business support staff – 64 per cent – did not feel that non-fee-earning roles are valued at their firm.
Nick Woolf, a partner at headhunter Sainty Hird, who recruits lawyers and senior non-fee-earners, says: “It’s a shame, but I’m not surprised. Law firms are dominated by fee-earners. Unfortunately a lot of firms view support staff as just that – lackeys to support the real business of generating fees.”
Woolf’s view is shared by fee-earners. One senior non-fee-earner at a top 10 UK firm says: “There’s a fairly well-established ‘us and them’ divide. Support staff who are embedded in the practice areas rather than centrally have much less of an ‘us and them’ problem. It’s support staff based in central functions that are much more invisible to most lawyers.”
One City partner says: “Unfortunately, I don’t think many lawyers understand what these people do. I expect to see a rise in non-lawyer managers who might better understand these functions.”
Internal communication was identified as a critical area for improvement, with many business support staff seemingly unsure of their role within the firm.
Just 41 per cent of business services personnel agreed that the firm communicated how their role contributes to overall firm strategy. That makes fairly depressing reading, but even worse are the career development prospects.
Only 16 per cent of business services people felt that there are good opportunities for promotion within their department or practice area. And only 25 per cent of support staff believe that people are given clear messages about their future potential.
“There’s an increasing focus on career development – for example, some firms have four or five grades for secretaries – but it could be better. There’s a single ladder, and you either go up it or you don’t, or you leave,” says one business development manager.
Career development is also a crucial issue for lawyers. The employee engagement ;survey reinforces the findings of The Lawyer’s January 2007 YouGov survey, which revealed that only 64 per cent of assistant solicitors across the profession were aiming for partnership. That figure slumped to just 37 per cent among firms with more than £250m turnovers, which is roughly equivalent to the top 10 firms in the UK.
If anything things are getting worse. The employee engagement survey revealed that only 46 per cent of fee-earners were aiming for partnership in their own firm and only 40 per cent believed it was an achievable aim. ;Despite ;gloomy ;partnership prospects and a rise in alternative career paths at some firms, only 28 per cent of fee-earners agreed that their firm ;provides a good alternative to partnership.
“But that’s right, isn’t it?” comments Woolf. “Not everyone ;becomes ;a millionaire. The best will get partnership. It can only be for those of the very highest calibre.”
Analysis of the statistics reveals four critical areas where improvement is needed for fee-earners: career development and career structures, partnership opportunities, work-life balance and reward.
Despite ;spiralling salaries in recent years, only ;48 ;per ;cent ;of respondents are satisfied with their basic salaries; only 32 per cent are satisfied with their bonuses; and a shockingly low 21 per cent believe that bonuses are ;calculated ;fairly throughout their firm.
These figures are boosted by fee-earners, who feel much more fairly rewarded for the work they do than business support staff. Fifty-four per cent of business support staff said pay would be the most likely reason for them to leave. Among fee-earners the biggest single factor was work-life balance, with 42 per cent saying that this would be a reason to leave. Of all employees, 41 per cent are less than satisfied with their work-life balance.
The survey is the first census of the UK legal sector to cover all employees, including fee-earners and all business support functions, such as HR, business development, secretarial, IT and communications.
Employee engagement sits at an average of 62 per cent for fee-earners across all firms taking part in the survey, but less than 49 per cent of support staff are fully engaged.
Employee engagement surveys have replaced old-fashioned job satisfaction surveys because research suggested ;that ;job satisfaction is a passive measurement and did not translate to profitability.
“There’s a much stronger link between engagement and productivity. If you have engaged employees, they’re likely to be more profitable to the firm,” says YouGov associate director Matt Roddan.
More ;than ;4,000 employees at 11 firms were surveyed, providing a range of responses across the legal market. The 11 firms represent a cross-section of the market, ranging from international giants to smaller regional firms.
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Readers' comments (41)
Sam | 3-Sep-2008 3:17 pm
Bad form
Its not really suprising that the support teams are feeling bad is it? The main thrust of these comments seems to be that no-one but the lawyers add true value and therefore there's no point worrying about back office functions being engaged.
But look at it this way, what if none of those support staff were there, and lawyers had to do it all themselves? Things would grind to a halt pretty quickly and we'd see hissy fits left right and centre. So clearly they add something. And whatever work it is that people are doing, they'll do it better if they feel valued and engaged.
Perhaps those with a negative experience of these departments, might find they perform better when they're treated better...
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Anonymous | 3-Sep-2008 4:56 pm
Bravo Laurence
Well said.
HR are nothing but chip wearing form fillers, generally.
The odd good one here and there, but generally they're bitter that their lives didn't turn out quite as well as they wanted, and that they don't get a payslip nearly as fat as those nasty lawyers.
Post Room superstars? Most definintely. I've recruited a number of very able, dedicated and intelligent people from the ranks of the post room. One of them will shortly be qualifying.
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Anonymous | 4-Sep-2008 9:09 am
From the dark side...
"Things would grind to a halt pretty quickly and we'd see hissy fits left right and centre."
Really? Some of the biggest firms in the world have been around for over 100 years, the majority of that time without BD or HR departments. I think 'self-importance' can be added to the list of support staff flaws!
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Anonymous | 4-Sep-2008 9:22 am
The most unsung roles?
Not much mention of in-house software developers and programmers who enable lawyers to make 10 times as much money without doing any extra work. I wonder who gets the reward for it? Most people don't even know that they exist!
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Aaron Ymous | 4-Sep-2008 9:26 am
IT
Yeah, I'd stick up for IT, or at least against HR: at least the IT team actually DO something...
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Anon. | 4-Sep-2008 11:44 am
Support staff
I don't have anything bad to say about any other of the support teams, but HR have been at best mediocre, at worst a real pain at each of the five businesses I've worked for.
When it comes to making a hire, they insert themselves quite unnecessarily and unhelpfully in every decision, always trying to justify their existence, yet when on the few things where their help is actually called for, such as over payroll questions, they are inflexible, obstructive and the very opposite of the 'can do' attitude.
I still have faith that in some businesses, HR can be a positive help, but everywhere I have worked so far they have been resented by decision-makers and junior staff alike.
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Anonymous | 4-Sep-2008 11:51 am
Alternatives to partnership
Given the (increased?) difficulties of getting into the equity tier at most firms, surprisingly few have done much when it comes to creating real alternatives.
I think if you suggested to many managing partners that they are ready to callously chuck away the lawyers who they aren't planning to make partner when they get older they would recoil in horror, yet are doing this inadvertently by not creating anywhere for those lawyers to go within the firm.
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Anonymous | 5-Sep-2008 3:40 pm
Business Professionals - Emperor's New Coat
having worked in the 'support' function of several law firms, as well as big corporates, i can't say I have any respect for the so-called 'business/marketing professionals' at all.
One simple fact: genuine marketing professionals understand their market and the product they are selling.
But I have yet met a legal marketing person who has any clue about what lawyers do, nor the products/market segmentation of their clients. So much for the oft-repeated mantra: cross-selling........
Don;t even talk to me about their qualification! If these people are any good, they'll be in real marketing organisations, e.g. Procter and Gamble, where they are on the front line.
Let's be brutally honest, they are no more than glorified events or pitch-printing people (some of them are very good at it though and these are essential functions).
My experience so far is that many of them are protected by some senior partners of the firms (perhaps they started off as their secretaries years ago), hence nobody dares check/question their effectiveness/value fopr money.
One Silver Circle firm I know has had at least 1 business support person leaving every month (out of a total around 40) for over 2 years! Can you imagine any serious commercial organisation allowing that kind of costs to be incurred for so long - e.g. the recruitment agency fees?
Not to mention a no. of bullying complaints within the department... Yet both the marketing and HR director continue to be unaffected.............so at the end of the day, lawyers can only blame themselves for allowing this kind of emperor-new-coat to exit
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Anonymous | 7-Sep-2008 9:17 am
mandy
i think perhaps the accoutning function and IT should be separated from the BD function, in terms of value adding.
The former know what they are doing, their ability has been measured by external/objective qualifications, and i can't imagine how any law firm can function without them.
Also they don't have a chip on their shoulder, i.e. they don't have to justify why they exist.
But BD is totally different: while they are important in putting pitches together, arranging clients' functions, especially the large ones and generally making sure fee earners can concentrate on their work, and managing directory submission, there is nothing that a competent admin secretray can't do.
Whether they are professionals or not is a moot point, as long as they stop talking about 'helping partners cross sell' or 'to be involved in client facing'! these are way out of their depth! and stop pretending they are marketing profrosessionlas (which by definition means they have to actually know the markets).
I know one banking function in a city firm whose BD manager and a BD exec. haven't beeen replaced for about a year. While it's not convenient, the department hasn't collaped and certainly the fee income hasn't gone down.
Now isn't that saying something in itself! (And it is not the only department I know which is in the same situation!)
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K. Hargreaves | 10-May-2009 3:47 pm
I have worked in the legal professional for over a decade and have worked with some of the top brass of the legal world. I am not a solicitor although do fee earn and in addition bring in new business leads in excess of 100 per month!
I feel the need to have my say in relation to ANON's comments see above ..........
He says support staff have no less respect that they deserve and it is only due to the generosity of firms in the first place by giving them such big salaries relative to their merits that they get ideas above their station.
What a w****r! I'm sorry [not really] but if you are going to make such comments at least have the balls to tell us who you are.
Let me tell you the support staff at most of the firms I have worked for over the last decade would have gobbled you up and spat you out! Furthermore most of them would probably be better at the job than ANON! Which probably explains his/her issue.
Another important fact this idiot wants to learn is that no matter how clever he thinks he may be THERE IS NO I IN TEAM. The support staff are the very backbone of most firms and the HR Managers who run the firms have to deal with those such as ANON everyday, its them that I feel sorry for not the ANONs of this world who seem to have issues spilling over from the days of their articles or training contracts having to do too many ad hoc duties/make too much tea or have to ask people like me for advice.
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