COVID-19 Pandemic and Employee Retention

In January 2022, Tracument completed a survey of over 300 legal professionals across various types of law and across Canada. The intention was to provide insight on the current state of the legal industry, and particularly its response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Our survey comprised 23 questions and collected data from all types of law and all levels of law firm employees. Respondents included those who are clients and a large number who are not. Most respondents practise some form of litigation (due to the nature of our services and the fact that litigation is the most commonly-practised type of law), however, respondents come from all types of practice.

The survey was particularly interested in views on office activity (including location), productivity, long-term impact of COVID-19, and staff views on management's effectiveness throughout the pandemic.

We will discuss elements of our survey over the next couple of months and several blog posts, but it would be best to start with the most surprising and important data we collected — the number of persons thinking about a career change. Fully 43% of respondents answered that they were thinking about making a change in their career — ranging from a change to their role within their current firm to a move entirely away from the legal field. Another 16.6% of respondents preferred not to say whether they were contemplating a move, which one might take to mean they are at least unsure, or were concerned about sharing a more honest answer (though the individual results of the survey were and are secure and private). This means that only four in ten respondents stated that they wished to make no change.

This statistic should be alarming. Loss of personnel is one of the most expensive and potentially devastating things that a firm can go through. The American Bar Association, in their 2017 Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report, reported that the average total cost to a law firm to replace a senior associate is at least $200,000. This may sound high, but when one considers the lost work product, potential loss of files and/or clients, cost to hire a recruiter, internal costs to hire and train the new associate, and cost of lost mentorship, it starts to make sense. These costs exist at the staff level too. Though they will not be as much as for lawyers, loss of support staff can be highly disruptive.

Turnover can also be associated with a panoply of administrative and cultural ills (leaving aside the actual hard dollar cost):

• Departures can beget further departures, either because friends or key work allies depart, making the job less pleasant for those who stay, or because the recently departed can sometimes lure their friends still with your firm to join their new employer.
• Many employees who decide to stay when turnover is high report a reduction of morale and support and an increase in frustration and mistakes.
• When turnover is high, it can be difficult to keep up with training, causing the quality of work product to decrease.
• Client confidence can fall if personnel who work on their files are constantly being replaced and are not recognisable when your clients need them.

Conversely, if your firm is able to attract and retain good people, the benefits are substantial. Keeping talented people allows you to invest in their development, which causes a number of upward cycles in quality of work product, job satisfaction, firm culture, and even your ability to attract future employees. Firm management is freed from the burden of constantly working to fill vacant positions. Clients are at a reduced risk of departing or growing concerned.

Ultimately, law firms are a business and more profit is the goal. Your business is selling your firm's time and expertise, and a high priority should be to keep that engine in place.

Our full survey results will be available in a report published later this month. You will see how risk of staff departures correlates with a number of other factors related to the pandemic, such as work-from-home or hybrid work expectations, technology, and pandemic response. The report will give you tangible ideas you can implement that are associated with keeping your people happy. We invite you to download it when it becomes available.

---

If you are interested in learning more about WFH technologies and how to support remote employees, I invite you to download our free 2022 Legal Survey Report, which provides an enormous amount of data and includes a more in-depth discussion of the above topics.