How to make a law firm "A Great Place To Work"
Posted By Rob Millard - 0 Comments -
One law firm that has been rated "a great place to work" for several years now, is Nixon Peabody, LLP. How do they manage it? William Simpson, their Director of Human Resources, discloses their secret in this blog post at Cultural Work Diversity.
Simpson says that there was no 'silver bullet' and that some of the things that they did were quite small, but over time they had a fundamental impact on their culture. Here's a bulletpoint summary:
- Use metrics to establish a benchmark (The firm has an employee satisfaction measurement tool that they run every eighteen months.)
- Determine what drives employee satisfaction in your firm (Every firm is different. NP identified five drivers: meaningful work; recognition; respect for management; communications; empowerment.)
- Rethink your concept of diversity (NP's approach to diversity goes far beyond only minority groups.)
- Commit to continuous improvement (Making a firm a great place to work is an ongoing journey rather than a once off project.)
- Make employee satisfaction a strategic goal (At NP, employee satisfaction is placed at the same level of priority as client satisfaction, quality, financials and other strategic measures.)
What particularly resonated with me in Simpson's post was that changing Nixon Peabody's culture was a carefully considered, long term (5 year) process that is still ongoing. Larger scale, shorter term change initiatives as described by by John Kotter and others are often hugely disruptive and almost always have unanticipated consequences. Which means that more management effort is needed to fix things. (This is not a criticism of Kotter - his approach certainly has an important place where the drivers of change are more urgent.) Simpson's post is a wonderful overview of another kind of change management, where change is effected through influence exerted on the firm's culture over time rather than through direct action. It gives solid guidance to any strategist that may be wondering how best to go about realigning his/her firm's culture with its strategy, whatever that strategy may be!
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