I’ve had a lot of comments on Issues #2 and #3 of Practical Counsel (for which many thanks) – especially comments on my plans to draft a policy to deal with some of the issues around cancel culture. I’ll for sure be returning to those issues in a subsequent newsletter but for now I want to shift to a different topic.
This week I am responding to a question about hybrid / remote working.
There’s a link with Issues #2 and #3 in that there are definitely generational preferences around remote and hybrid working. This week someone at the start of her in-house journey writes in about the challenges she’s experiencing working remotely, and I take the opportunity to share some of my observations about the possible future of work for in-house.
Enjoy reading, and please comment and contribute to the debate by posting direct on Practical Counsel. Also, please write in with your unique people issues to me (jonathan@middleburghassociates.com) - I unequivocally undertake never to reveal your identity and will change key details of your situation so as to preserve your confidentiality and anonymity (unless you don’t want this). I also undertake to write to you personally with my own thoughts and comments on your situation and am always happy to follow up with a call on Zoom or similar.
‘Dear Jonathan’ … and Jonathan’s Reply
Dear Jonathan,
I practised for five years at one of the AmLaw 100 before moving to an in-house role in one of the Fortune 250 shortly before the pandemic. I’m a litigator by background, and work as part of a small team that handles a mixture of claims (mostly tort-based claims).
My team (12 lawyers – I manage one very junior resource) has been working 100% remotely throughout the pandemic. We’ve been told that the future is mainly home-based working, with the option to come in occasionally, for example for the occasional in-person meeting or social event. Most of the physical space that was previously allocated to legal has been reallocated and we are left with a limited number of desks (we will have to reserve in advance if we want to come in) and break-out areas / meeting spaces.
I’ve been struggling, on and off, throughout the pandemic. I have a supportive line manager but I’m outgoing and I need to be around people. I’ve had bouts of low mood, irritability and anxiety during the pandemic. Also, one period of more serious depression. I am on anti-depressant medication.
Any suggestions? And do you think that long-term remote working or hybrid working is sustainable?
Best wishes,
Siobhan (she/her)
—
Dear Siobhan,
This is a vast topic and I’m not going to cover all of it in this reply to you. I imagine that I’ll get a swirl of comments from readers, so I may well write about this again in the next issue of Practical Counsel.
My sympathies are with you, given the situation in which you find and have found yourself. My sympathies are, indeed, with so many lawyers who have found the working environment a challenging one over the last two years.
I conducted a survey of lawyers around a year into the pandemic, focused on experiences of remote working. Around 1000 lawyers, globally, filled in the survey.
The results of my survey broadly map onto the results of other similar surveys.
Productivity has held up surprisingly well during the pandemic, and has increased for many. But the emotional impact, for some, of protracted remote working has been significant. While 53% of respondents to my survey reported that the impact of remote working on their emotional well-being had been either somewhat or significantly positive, 23% reported that it had been somewhat negative and 4% reported that it had been significantly negative.
21% of respondents reported that they had experienced low motivation since working remotely, 18% low mood, 11% volatility of mood and 19% difficulty concentrating on work.
These results, and certain other results (e.g. impact on team working, cohesiveness etc.), suggest that there is a dark side to remote working. This, I believe, also applies to hybrid working.
The truth is that some people (and this can be personality dependent) find working remotely very challenging, and the viability and efficacy of remote working and hybrid working is also dependent on how well employees are managed.
I think it is far too soon to call the long-term future of working. It certainly seems now as if the short to medium-term trend for law firms and legal departments will be the hybrid working model, with lawyers spending an average of 2-4 days in the office. There are outliers, inevitably – both organisations that are insisting on employees being in the office full-time (Morgan Stanley, for example, are insisting on their external lawyers being primarily office based) and organisations that have shifted, like your employer, to near full-time remote working.
I’m not convinced that the current pattern will settle down and become the long-term pattern.
My feeling is that remote working has worked remarkably well because there was no alternative and because the pandemic created a situation which was almost like a war, where employees felt like they had to hunker down and do whatever was necessary to get through the emergency.
Once remote working is no longer a matter of necessity, but a matter of choice, I’m not sure that all employees will feel that it’s the right thing for them individually. Those who derive their energy from other people may well crave a return to the office, either part-time or full-time.
Obviously, though, there will be those who prefer remote working, either some of the working week or all of the working week. Recruiters are reporting that one of the most common first questions asked by candidates at the moment is whether the job is flexible / hybrid - and that many candidates reject out of hand opportunities that are primarily office-based.
You’ve asked for my suggestions, Siobhan.
In the space available to me, I’m going to focus on my suggestions to you, as an employee, rather than making suggestions addressed to your line manager or employer. Suggestions for employers are a whole different topic, and I will write about that topic in a subsequent issue of Practical Counsel.
Insofar as you’re concerned, you’ve identified that you are outgoing and that you need to be around other people. This recognition shows helpful self-awareness on your part. Self-awareness (a key component of emotional intelligence) is often a critical element when it comes to achieving good personal outcomes at work and more generally.
But self-awareness, alone, doesn’t drive a good outcome. What does is self-awareness coupled with specific decisions or actions, informed by accurate self-awareness.
In your case I would make a number of practical suggestions:
· try to find opportunities to interact with people as often as possible during the working day. If you’re extroverted – as it sounds like you are – you won’t get the same energy from a Zoom call or a meeting on Teams as you will from a physical interaction with somebody. So, if you can, build some time into the working day to meet someone for a quick coffee at a local café; or take some exercise with someone; or arrange to meet someone before or after work.
· build a lot of exercise into your working week. Spending the whole week on video calls, or working in isolation, can be very draining, both mentally and physically. Make sure you appropriate some, or all, of the time you are saving on commuting as ‘me’ time, especially for exercise. From a neuroscientific point of view, exercise releases endorphins and other good chemicals. From a common-sense point of view we know that it makes us feel more energised, more alive, and less prone to depression.
· take regular breaks during the day. If you’re someone who finds yourself immersed in your work, and not looking up from your screen for several hours, build in conscious breaks. Set an hourly alarm on a device and force yourself to get up, to stretch and to have a drink.
· let your line manager know if you’re not getting the support that you need. No-one appreciates a highly needy colleague – but equally any good line manager will want to support you, and will find it helpful if you spell out the level of support you would find optimal.
· Maximise the opportunities to spend time in the office, with people. You’ve mentioned that your employer is encouraging home-based working, but allowing for limited opportunities to meet at the office. In your case, you will find it helpful to take up as many of those opportunities as possible.
· be compassionate with yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself. If there are days when you are struggling, don’t beat yourself up. You will actually make it worse for yourself if you beat yourself up about your mood. Focus instead on being kind to yourself – and think constructively about whether there is anything you need to tweak in your routine, bearing in mind the advice I’ve given above.
· try out other things that might enhance your mood, or increase your resilience. There is no one-size-fits-all formula here. It’s a question of trying lots of different things and finding out what works for you. Some find meditation and mindfulness incredibly helpful; for others it doesn’t touch the sides of their anxiety or listlessness. You might want to try a well-being app such as Headspace (your employer might indeed provide this, or similar, to you); but it may do nothing for you. You might get more from listening to your favourite music, watching something funny, walking in nature or having a pet. The point is that only you can know what works for you, and you are more likely to know if you try out a range of different things, and observe what makes a difference for you.
I hope that some of these suggestions resonate with you, and are helpful to you. I’m sure readers will write in with other suggestions, thoughts and comments.
As always, I encourage members of the Practical Counsel community to write in to me at jonathan@middleburghassociates.com with their people problems and issues that are currently concerning you, or that are issues that come up for you regularly. And, as always, I will anonymise your observations / issues and preserve confidentiality and write to you individually in response to any scenario that I use in this newsletter.
Good luck getting through this challenging period, Siobhan, and good luck to all of you out there who are grappling with similar challenges.
GC Expert’s Insight of the Week
Joe Kohler is a former Managing Director of Deutsche Bank, and was Co-Global Head of Global Markets, Legal. He specializes in Derivatives, Structured Finance, Carbon Markets, Financial Regulations and Fintech and is now a Partner at Reed Smith LLP, a global law firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with over 1,500 lawyers in 30 countires internationally.
Dear Jonathan,
Generally the physical workplace is the best place for lawyers to collaborate and learn. Obviously there are exceptions, such as where shielding is necessary.
That said, the drafting of documents, the making of conference calls and many of the other ‘regular’ ways of practising law are conducive to being conducted better in a quieter environment - and for some people that might be at home.
These issues aside, other issues around hybrid working are – in my view - pretty much the same for lawyers as for any other type of office staff. They range from the efficiency of not needing to commute, to the potential negative effects on mental health; and encompass information security issues, the quality of the home office and the opportunities for social interaction with colleagues.
As a leader of teams of lawyers, one of the issues I have found hardest to solve when working at home is how to keep an eye on whether any member of the team has bitten off more than they can chew.
In the office, it is relatively easy to spot when someone is deeply underwater; it is harder when a team member is working remotely and does not believe that he or she can even find the time to ask for help.
Lawyers now need to find the balance between the virtues of working from home and the advantages of working in a physical, shared, workspace.
That balance is not just about the relative amount of time spent in and out of the office. It is also about who is physically with you when you are in the office, and what you are trying to do there.
For example, a junior lawyer will find it more difficult to learn from more experienced colleagues if those senior lawyers are all working from home in order to avoid a packed train which would be their daily commute. By way of additional example, a lawyer who is coming into the office to avoid a noisy home environment will not want to find the office has been entirely given over to collaboration spaces, so that there is nowhere to find any privacy.
The landscape is going to be a changing one: new tech will facilitate new ways to train the next generation of lawyers; it may also mean that people do not need to work from home on the days they want to consult with a doctor, or that they will not leave early to attend a school parents’ evening.
In other words, the discussions between firms and their staff and their clients about how work should be conducted into the future will be ongoing.
And out of those discussions, visionary decisions will need to be taken.
These are exciting times.
Yours
Joe
Key Takeaways
1. The current patterns around remote working and hybrid working will not necessarily become the new norms or ‘new normal’ post-pandemic.
2. Employers need to have an ongoing dialogue with their employees (and both need to have an ongoing dialogue with their clients) as things settle down post-pandemic.
3. If working remotely, seek out opportunities to interact with people during the working day, or before / after – especially if you are extroverted as a personality type.
4. Build exercise into your working week.
5. Maintain a dialogue with your line manager, especially in relation to the level of support you need.
6. Especially if you are extroverted, maximise your opportunities to spend time in the office with people.
7. Go easy on yourself if you are struggling; it will only make things worse if you don’t.
8. Try out a variety of things that might boost your mood or increase your resilience. Make a mental note of what works and do more of it.
And Now …
Contribute to the debate and write in with your comments and observations. Also write to Jonathan with any other people issues you face as an in-house lawyer.
Jonathan can be reached by email at jonathan@middleburghassociates.com
A note for you picky lawyers; and a plea for tolerance
I am a British lawyer by background and went to both school and University in the UK. So my English is British English. I have taken a conscious decision to write this newsletter in British English, but to try to avoid phrases that aren’t common outside the UK. Sometimes, though, I’ll use a phrase that isn’t commonly used outside the UK, without realising that it is a Britishism.
My plea is for you to tolerate the British spellings and grammar and the occasional Britishism. And to focus on the substance of the newsletter rather than the occasional (to you) annoying turn of phrase, bit of grammar of unorthodox spelling.
Thank you and best wishes,
Jonathan Middleburgh