June
2004 - Motivation in law firms
What keeps you committed at work?
Is it the pay or the job itself? Or has it something
to do with your boss or your colleagues? A recent
study by Capital Incentives and Motivation, a
Chester-based incentives business which surveyed
2,000 people across the UK, found that "fair
treatment" in the workplace and "having
good relationships with colleagues" were
regarded as the two most important factors in
keeping people committed to their jobs. But the
study also said that pay was moving up the league
table of factors when compared with responses
in previous years. It rose from fifth place last
year to third place this time with "job security"
close behind.
This suggests that although some
issues retain their importance over time, the
strength of other factors fluctuates, depending
perhaps on economic circumstances. This year,
for example, UK interest rates are creeping up
once more, suggesting that finances are going
to be under increasing pressure in some households.
Financial pressures and a tight labour market
tend to make employees risk averse. On the other
hand, as confidence grows and companies begin
to recruit again, we can expect the market to
slacken as people begin to think about moving
jobs. In this event, fears about job security
would be likely to subside.
Other variables influencing the
degrees of employee motivation include the age
and career progress of respective employees. Young
employees and those in mid-career are more likely
to move than those approaching the end of their
careers. Variables aside, there appear to be an
enduring set of factors underpinning job commitment
that have emerged time and again in successive
studies over the past 80 years. The late Frederick
Herzberg, a US psychologist and management professor,
defined motivation factors such as recognition,
personal responsibility and the scope for personal
achievement. Other issues such as pay, working
conditions and management policy he described
as maintenance or "hygiene" factors.
While the first set of qualities related to improved
morale and aspirations, the second group could
generate high levels of dissatisfaction if they
were misapplied. Even a pay rise, he noted, could
prove divisive if an employee regarded it as unfair
when compared with others' treatment. The poor
application of a merit system, therefore, could
influence the sense of fair treatment and relations
among colleagues regarded as prime factors in
maintaining commitment.
Herzberg's theories suggest that
those issues that tend to create demotivated and
disillusioned workforces may be more significant
than the idea of building motivation. So instead
of trying to motivate employees, managers might
do better to concentrate on maintaining the working
conditions that keep people happy. As an illustration
of the way staff relations can go awry, look how
professional services firms have created dissatisfaction
among their initially highly motivated young staff,
trying to squeeze ever greater levels of productivity
from people by concentrating on working hours.
A request two years ago by Clifford
Chance, the law firm, for its New York associates
to bill 2,420 hours a year, backfired on the firm
when associates complained that the target would
be unattainable unless they were to engage in
"padding" their hours - an outlawed
form of over-billing. The firm abandoned the target,
but not before one associate had complained: "The
management cares exceedingly about hours billed,
but gives no thought to the quality of my work."
Allen & Overy received a similar backlash
last year when it asked its UK associates to work
a minimum of 2,200 office hours a year - the equivalent
of 10-hour days, assuming five weeks of paid holiday
a year. The Young Solicitors' Group, a UK body
that has campaigned strenuously against the long-hours
culture of legal practices, said at the time:
"If you are tied to your desk for your 10
hours of recordable time every day, how are you
going to fit in the rest of your life?" The
law firms are in a difficult position because
billed hours equate directly with partner profitability
and unless this can be maintained, there is a
risk that the best partners might defect to more
profitable firms.
A study undertaken among 12 law
firms in the UK in 2003 by Getfeedback, a human
resources and training consultant based in Henley-on-Thames,
suggested that firms could improve their staff
relations if more senior partners were prepared
to spend more time on staff development, passing
on expertise to their junior colleagues. While
this could divert top-billing lawyers from their
profitable client-facing work, it may be necessary
to ensure a healthy throughput of talent in the
long term. These issues illustrate the perennial
difficulties with motivation. Although there have
been plenty of studies establishing what employers
need to do to maintain a committed workforce with
staff recognition and job enrichment featuring
strongly every time, few managers seem capable
of creating the right conditions.
Perhaps this is because managers
rarely have the time to reflect deeply enough
on staff concerns. In a new book, A Bias for Action,*
Heike Bruch and the late Sumantra Ghoshal identify
four types of managerial behaviour from their
research. The most dominant behaviour displayed
by 40 per cent of managers they studied was a
"frenzied" approach to work created
by attempting to deal with numerous distracting
tasks emerging every day. A similar observation
was made many years ago by Henry Mintzberg, the
Canadian management writer. Another common feature
reported by the authors was procrastination, caused
by a lack of energy and focus, displayed by 30
per cent of those studied. They found that a fifth
of managers were detached from their work, appearing
aloof and apathetic.
Only one in 10 of those in the
research were purposeful in their approach, working
calmly to get the job done. One of the biggest
problems facing managers, say the authors, is
what they call "unproductive busyness"
- rushing between meetings, returning phone calls
and checking e-mails, "stamping out fires"
instead of attending to more pressing matters.
Often this kind of busy behaviour, they write,
can lead to what they call "grasshopping"
where some managers get involved in several different
projects at any one time, with little sense of
priority, simply because they find it difficult
to say "no". When you contrast this
"busyness" with law firms' obsession
with recording billed hours you can discern a
common theme of quantity taking precedence over
quality.
Professors Bruch and Ghoshal
say that purposeful managers must possess the
willpower and must have the freedom of choice
to resist distractions so that they can first
identify, then pursue, their most important work.
* A Bias for Action , by
Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, is published
by Harvard Business School Press, price Dollars
29.95.
|
