It’s Never The Right Time For Law Firms To Set Employees Unreasonable Targets, Explicit Or Implied...

I’ve always been sceptical about reports of law firms setting employees unreasonable fee targets, such that many suffer from unacceptable levels of stress.

I’m sure it happens from time to time, but I’m sceptical about the alleged scope of the problem given that it’s, to me at least, completely devoid of common sense.

Setting unreasonable expectations, explicitly or otherwise, will almost always lead to disappointment for someone, and often both employer and employee, because the unreasonableness of itself means the targets are in the main not going to be met.

In many employment markets at the present time employees are in a historically very strong position, with a shortage of suitable talent, and salaries and benefits improving very strongly.

It’s even more unlikely than previously that unreasonable targets will be tolerated for long by quality employees.

However, it’s very important that firms, in seeking to be competitive in the market for talent, retain a strong perspective on what makes commercial common sense.

I’ve written a lot about what employers need to do to keep talent and attract new team members.

This issue I felt it time for a reminder of the obvious, that there are two parties to employment arrangements, and they both have serious obligations…

Employees must:

(i)            Perform the work with care and skill.

(ii)           Be open and communicative with the employer... raise issues and work through them.

(iii)          Comply with the terms of the employment agreement.

(iv)          Comply with lawful and reasonable instructions from the employer (including policies and procedures).

(v)           Keep the employer’s information and business confidential.

(vi)          Not do anything to undermine the employer’s business.

Employers of course have a raft of obligations, well-known to all good employers.

One thing the employer obviously does not have is an “obligation” to allow the business to be sent broke to accommodate an employee’s every need… 

Getting the whole thing right is undoubtedly getting harder, and quality engagement with team members is an absolute minimum standard.

Anyone in law firm management thinking that having reasonable goals and communicating well from the outset, and regularly along the way, will ensure that everyone achieves them, has been living on a very different planet from the one the rest of us live on.

There will be performance issues.

Hard conversations about significant divergences from expectations have always been things that far too many in law firm management have shied away from. 

In the foreseeable future there will be enhanced concern that raising issues that really do need to be raised, so plans for fixes can be agreed upon and implemented, will interfere with the firm’s imperatives around talent retention.

Already pressures are appearing in managing performance issues equitably across teams, and firms will need to be aware of the serious risk potential of not demonstrably doing so.

Bottom line Robservation...A big challenge for management through the rest of 2022, and deep into 2023, will be to get the balance right in managing all key performance issues.

Having been very aggressive on all aspects of remuneration packages, and in being sure to have set very reasonable targets both for fees and effective FirmTime™ work, the bar for maintaining the financial health of many practices has been set higher than ever before, and it will not look after itself. 

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