Getting the people prize

Law firms are trying hard, but with variable success, to get on the Sunday Times ‘Top 100 Companies to Work For’ list. But Pannone LLP, the highest placed law firm on the list for three years running, is the firm that is clearly doing something right. By Rachel Dobson, partner and HR director, Pannone LLP

Our success in the Sunday Times ‘Top 100 Companies to Work For’ list, over the past three years, has prompted many enquiries as to how we’ve done it. In the 2006 list, we achieved third place nationally (we were fourth in 2005 and sixth in 2004, our first year in the competition). In each year, we have also been the highest placed law firm in the survey. We are particularly proud of our achievement, given that the survey is based on the results of questionnaires completed by 250 of our staff and which go direct to the ‘Best Companies’ organisation – there is no opportunity to fix it.

In analysing the reasons for our success, it is worth looking at how Best Companies benchmarks performance. Best Companies gathers the views of (this year) 86,592 employees across all participating companies. Surveys are distributed to a randomly selected group of employees, at least 40 per cent of these have to be returned for an entry to be eligible. The survey contains

70 questions, measuring employee satisfaction across eight equally weighted workplace ‘factors’:

Leadership (the leadership and senior management of the company);
My manager (the local management on a day-to-day basis);
Personal growth (opportunities to learn, grow and be challenged);
Well-being (balancing work/life issues);
My team (immediate colleagues);
Giving something back (giving something back to society in the local community);
My company (the company and the way it treats its staff);
Fair deal (pay and benefits).

Interestingly, the factor that most closely correlates with success in the overall list, and therefore in which it is most important to do well, is leadership. This is often a surprise to managers when discussing with them what we can learn from the outcome of the survey. Many people expect that the most important factor would be ‘fair deal’ – in fact, this is the least statistically significant factor.

Developing an understanding of the issues as identified through the Sunday Times questionnaire, is helpful when looking at improving people management.

Improving people management

We believe that one of the keys to our success in this area has been strong and inspirational leadership at the top and in senior positions within the organisation. This enables us to set the tone for everyone who manages within the organisation.

What this means to individual members of staff, is that there is a consistent and fair approach to dealing with all the day-to-day issues that inevitably crop up – for example, absence, sickness, minor issues in relation to performance and conduct etc. Part of our approach in dealing with these issues is to make sure that they are dealt with by the immediate line manager (often a lawyer) of the member of staff concerned. I have spoken to many HR managers in law firms, where they are shipped in to deal with really quite minor HR issues that line managers are not willing to face up to. We think that it is fundamentally important that these are dealt with by the immediate manager. The huge benefits are that the problem is dealt with by the person who knows most about it and who is best placed to monitor future performance. Likewise, work is organised, career development is discussed and appraisals are given by the immediate manager of the person concerned.

I know from interviewing solicitors from other law firms that there appears to be a big issue in some organisations with solicitors at a more junior level feeling disconnected from the aims of the organisation as a whole and, more specifically, that no-one would notice if they were not there. By making sure that people are managed by their immediate supervisors and giving the supervisors the power to help them develop their careers, we think we have avoided the disengagement and dissatisfaction that can grow at this junior level.

However, there goes hand in hand with this, a firm-wide set of rules or standards so that there is a similar approach taken in every case where the same issues crop up. For example, how much sick pay would be given and in what circumstances is the same in every department and couldn’t be varied depending on, for example, what sort of mood the department head was in. Everyone who manages others has taken part in in-house management-supervision training sessions, which aim to discuss the firm’s approach to these issues and ensure that we are consistent across the firm. I am sure that it helps too, that we are all on one site.

Best Companies talks a lot about achieving and maintaining ‘employee engagement’. I think what is meant by this is that people feel involved with and have a loyalty to the firm. We try to achieve this in a variety of ways.

Honest communication
What we mean by this is telling everyone both good and bad news. We would much rather our staff find out from us rather than through gossip, if we have lost a particular source of work because a client has gone out of business, for example. Although bad news can be worrying, we find that people are much more worried if they do not know what is happening than if they do. The way to approach this is to tell people what has happened and also tell them how we are looking for other work to replace the work that has gone. This has the effect of people pulling together to solve the problem rather than thinking about leaving. We also communicate at length, in a weekly news bulletin about new contacts, clients and work development generally.

Career development for all
It is a mistake to assume that people at a more junior level in the organisation do not see themselves as having a career but simply a job. We offer career development at all levels of the organisation and have got many examples of staff who joined us as 16-year-old office juniors and who are now supervisors or managers on the support-services side of the practice or, indeed, successful lawyers. Those people are part of the glue that binds the firm together. We offer financial support as well as study leave for the pursuit of legal qualifications, again at all levels of the firm.

Shared celebration of successes
If the firm as a whole is doing well or if there are particular successes, then we let everybody know and the celebration is firm-wide. For example, if the firm as a whole beats its annual billing target (which happily it has done every year for the past several) then a firm-wide bonus is given; it is not concentrated in the hands of the few.

We also go out of our way to think of unusual and different benefits to offer our staff. These are a great talking point and overall they make it clear to the staff that we value them and care about their contribution. This year, for example, we have introduced the purchasing of extra holidays and sent everyone home an hour early on their birthday.

Overall, our whole approach is that we put the people in our organisation at the centre of our decision making and we find that our loyalty to them is always repaid. n

Rachel Dobson is a partner and HR director at Pannone LLP. She can be contacted on rachel.dobson@pannone.co.uk