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"The attorneys in this office don't show any respect for me. When I ask them a question, they say they don't have time to answer it. Then they complain that I didn't follow their instructions, and I have to do the work all over again." A secretary
"I never have a minute to think. Any time I'm not actually meeting with someone, my staff keeps interrupting me with one question or another. If I ask them to leave me alone, they act like I'm goofing off whey they do all the work." An attorney
These quotes are fictitious, but you've probably heard very similar comments. You can hear them in the majority of law firms in the country, and you can almost summarize the complaints on both sides in one sentence: "Nobody treats me with respect."
Who is right? Usually both sides. But until the issues are addressed, the ongoing undercurrents of dissent can undermine profits as well as morale.
For example, one of my first jobs was as a typist. I would see people standing around the water cooler, talking and "wasting time". In my mind, if I couldn't see them working,
they were not producing, just as I was not producing if I was not typing. I wasn't sophisticated enough to realize that they may have been discussing a business issue or taking the time to regroup between solving difficult problems.
It's easy for such misunderstandings to occur, particularly in professional service firms such as law practices. Relatively few law firms are large enough to have full time office-managers.
Even the largest firms have substantially fewer employees than a large manufacturing operation and consequently, fewer managers whose sole job is to work with employees.
Because of this, working with the staff is always an "interruption" for the professional. One result is that attorneys typically do not take enough time to say "please" and "thank you" or to explain the overall picture. Even if they do, it is with nowhere near the frequency of a middle-manager in a large corporation. Also, in a manufacturing company, many employees never have direct contact with the customer. If they make a mistake, it usually can be corrected before it is visible to the customer.
In contrast, the client sees almost every action taken by the staff of a small law firm. So if an employee does not do something correctly, there usually is no way to correct the mistake before the client sees it. The result is that mistakes have a much grater impact, and the lawyer reacts much more strongly when they occur.
So how does a law firm, particularly a smaller one, resolve these issues?
The single most important strategy is to take time for your staff -- even if you think you don't have another five minutes in the day.
You need to schedule a 10-to 15-minute break at least once every morning and twice every afternoon when you are available to answer questions or just to chat. Your staff will accept the fact that you don't have time to answer questions immediately, if they know you will be available within a few hours.
It's frustrating to you at first, but it's a little like teaching a child to tie his own shoelaces. It takes much longer the first time to teach the child than to do it yourself, but you will save a great deal of time once the child learns how.
Plan an outing for the staff at least once a month.
It may be attending a seminar together or going to lunch together. Today's employees have less loyalty to their employers than ever before. You can counterbalance this trend by building an unstructured time with your staff.
Deal with complaints from employees right away, and take them seriously.
Ignoring complaints will not make them disappear. You may not be able to resolve all the complaints, but it is important to listen and to let employees know you appreciate their willingness to cope with problems. For
example, an attorney might respond to a complaint about a difficult client by saying, "Yes, we know Mrs. Jones is very unhappy. It is an act of kindness to remain courteous when you listen to her complaints, and I really appreciate your doing so."
Encourage your employees to tell you when the feel uncomfortable, even if they cannot pinpoint the reason.
For example, I worked with a firm where women working in a particular area were taking frequent and unnecessary breaks, according to their supervisor. When I talked with the women, they said they simply felt the need to move about but they didn't understand why themselves. When I walked into the room, I discovered that it was a small, enclosed space without any windows and with a lot of clutter, including some packing cases that were being stored there for no particular reason.
The result was that the room made people feel claustrophobic, and the women subconsciously felt a need to get into an open area. The solution was to clean up the room, get rid of the packing cases, and cover the blank wall with a mountain scene of a waterfall and lake. The atmosphere became much more comfortable, and the frequent breaks stopped.
Realize that frequent annoyances, even though each incident is trivial, can add up.
For example, we had one firm where a group of word processors was angry with a group of attorneys, even though the attorneys were not their direct supervisors. The attorneys passed through an area and would stop to take a telephone call when they were paged, pick up somebody's pen, write their notes on somebody else's paper, and/or sit down at somebody else's desk. The word processors were reluctant to complain about the "small stuff," but the net effect was that they felt unimportant. If the attorneys felt free to interrupt their work by using their phones and their pens, the word processors perceived that the attorneys had no respect for their work.
We solved this by rearranging the office so that there was no longer a path through this area, and it was inconvenient for the attorneys to stop there to pick up a telephone.
Always explain the reasons for a task.
For example, if no one likes to do weekly reports on marketing activities, explain why it is necessary.
Maintain a certain level of aloofness, which is typically more difficult for women than for men.
Be interested in your employees, but don't be "one of the girls." Above all, don't gossip and don't complain. Find someone other than your subordinates to whom to confide about your personal problems.
Give graphic and sometimes exaggerated examples of the importance of routine tasks.
For example, a client may lose a lawsuit if the papers are typed incorrectly. Or if documents are delivered to the wrong court, a judge can heavily penalize the client for missing a deadline.
Watch your temper.
If you flare up, you lose points with your staff.
Hire more carefully than ever before.
When you hire a secretary, you can check typing and spelling, but it's harder to evaluate whether he or she will remember to give you all your telephone messages or be consistently polite to visitors.
You can observe in an interview the level of detail that a job applicant notices. How much has the applicant found out about your firm before arriving? Listen to the questions the applicant asks to find out if he or she is curious about any of the procedures he or she has noticed in your office. Does the applicant have suggestions, such as a way to improve how visitors are greeted? Noting the quality of the applicant's questions will give you a sense of how consistently attentive to detail he or she will be on a regular basis.
Remember, too, that no employee is perfect. Determine which qualities are most important to getting the job done. For example, if you are hiring a bookkeeper who occasionally answers the phone, can you live with someone who always keeps the accounts balanced, but sometimes forgets to give you a message? Or is your practice such that one missed message may create more of a disaster than an error in accounts receivable?
Don't take mistakes personally.
When a secretary tells a telephone caller at 11 a.m. that the attorney "hasn't come to work yet", as opposed to saying the attorney is in court, it's easy to wonder whether the secretary is deliberately undermining the professional atmosphere of the office.
Because of the widespread perception that women don't like to work for other women, women professionals can be especially quick to suspect insubordination, rather than lack of training, when such situations occur. It's important to realize that such problems are universal. They still take time to solve, but one of the keys to increasing teamwork in your office is to refuse to take mistakes personally.
Always be a role model in treating clients with respect.
The old adage that actions speak louder than words is still true. If you don't show respect for your clients, it's unlikely that your support staff will do so.
Be certain that you understand the business side of the operation.
If the partners don't understand the business side of the operation, there's no way to help if someone has a problem-or sometimes even to realize that a problem exists. In a small office, the owner should understand all the systems well enough to do it himself or herself in a pinch-even if he or she doesn't do it quite as well or efficiently. In a larger office, the appropriate partners must understand and appreciate the importance of the billing and bookkeeping staffs in order to both inspire employee confidence and ensure efficiency. It also helps to safeguard against embezzlement.
Reprinted from: The Bottom Line, Law Practice Management Section, Vol. 14, No.1, February, 1992.
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