But what about your employer brand? What distinguishes your firm from the firm down the street for your employees? Why should a candidate consider coming to work for you? What do you offer that will dissuade your paralegal or associate from accepting that job interview from a competitor? What do you offer the individual that no other firm offers? What is your employment experience?
When you have answered these questions, you will be on the way to formulating your employee value proposition (EVP). Your EVP is what your employees and potential employees think about your firm. Call it reputation, brand or appeal; your EVP is critical to attract and retain quality people. You should be able to easily articulate your EVP to employees and potential employees. As a law firm administrator, you create a positive culture that stands out among your competitors.
The Needs of Employees
Many partners and law firm administrators mistakenly believe compensation and benefits are all that are needed to be competitive in the talent market. While those are important, employees are looking for more. Employee experience is a sum of all the parts of work life: connection with others, opportunities for personal growth and the chance to be a part of something bigger.
To understand this premise, look towards Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. Abraham Maslow described the basic theory of human motivation using a five-tier pyramid. Beginning with basic physiological and safety needs, human needs evolve into love and belonging, then esteem and eventually self-actualization.
Employee experience is a sum of all the parts of work life.
When you apply this model to the employment world, compensation, basic benefits and a safe workplace fill the first and second tier needs. These are baseline requirements to compete. Firms must match or exceed market norms in compensation and benefits, but doing so does not distinguish your firm from your peer firms. Firms who try to compete only on these merits may beat their competition in compensation but find themselves in an unprofitable situation where the associate or other team member does not generate the revenue and value to the firm to cover their cost to the firm.
Additionally, a negative employee experience eventually outweighs the attraction of a compensation package, leading to costly turnover. To create an EVP that retains employees, you must explore the other tiers of the motivational pyramid to create a distinct employee value proposition.
Once basic needs are met, candidates and employees begin to look to their employer to fulfill their higher tier needs. Maslow identified the third tier as love and belonging. He postulated that people want to feel connected to their family, their friends and other individuals.
Fostering Community and Connection in the Workplace
Humans crave connection with their colleagues and want to feel like they are a part of the organization. This is where your culture can either buoy you or drag you down. Much research has been done around establishing a healthy connected culture. Employee retention improves when employees report having a close friend at work, so creating opportunities for connection and collaboration is critical for establishing bonds to each other and to the organization. Increased collaboration has been linked to higher productivity and stronger retention in organizations.
In our remote or hybrid work environment, administrators and supervisors must take extra steps to forge those connections. Using video conferencing over emails can help foster team spirit as can team projects and assignments. Frequent check-ins and team calls create bonds across offices and regions, and team projects provide opportunities for employees to connect.
For in-office team members, make sure your breakrooms encourage individuals to sit and converse. Wellness initiatives, charitable events, afternoon breaks and lunch and learns draw people together. When your partners and attorneys get involved, this sends a message that both connection and collaboration are valued by the firm, and it gives implicit permission to participate. Conversely, if all attorneys work through team lunches and celebrations, staff are discouraged from joining.
