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Employee survey reveals support staff dissatisfied

Support Roles and Engagement... Very good to see a survey including all members of firms (legal and non-legal) and to see the differences... Two of the biggest issues surrounding non-legal / support staff engagement are; Firstly, engagement from the top partnership is usually only ever via the absolute head of support functions (directors/heads of) etc - other senior managers, the ones who often do the actual work, are often ignored and under valued/paid and end up leaving. Secondly, strategic planning between support functions is often not joined up - whilst such teams work together on actual work, too often planning is done vertically in isolation, leading to politics, duplication and lack of efficiency and engagement. And too often it's the same 'absolute heads' who are the ones playing politics. Another crucial issue is the way many firms treat the overhead model of support teams i.e. they are an expense and a cost to the firm. However because such overheads are not re-charged to legal teams in many firms, the work of support functions (even discrete projects) is seen as 'zero cost' and there is a grab for support resource by legal teams. This leads to static/reduced budget but increased demand, a situation that leads to de-moralised support staff. Until partners can understand the difference between true operational overhead and projects which are investments, and can demonstrate ROI then this situation will continue. There are many, many senior support people who are as professional as lawyers (and as qualified as such), but whom are not respected merely because they are not lawyers and because they are not 'top of the tree' in a particular support function. For such professionals to not be engaged with due respect for their expertise in their own fields must surely be one of the main causes for the feelings of undervaluation.

1-Sep-2008

12:21 pm