Encouraging engagement

Jump starting your engagement intitiatives.

By Anne Malloy Tucker

As law firms grapple with recruitment and retention issues across both their legal and professional staff, the focus on ‘engagement’ initiatives has moved to centre stage. What was once exclusively the domain of the recruiting and human resources departments has now become – for forward thinking firms – a more holistic functional approach, involving marketing, communications, training and professional development, practice area management and operations.
Attracting the best and the brightest is only half of the challenge; keeping your best people motivated and satisfied at all levels of the organisation requires a firmwide commitment, a cohesive plan, and a willingness to invest both time and resources in the effort.
Marketing can play a key role in the employee engagement process and has a critical stake in its outcome. After all, successful brand building in professional services firms is about every individual at the firm understanding, believing and representing the brand. An engaged employee is the best brand ambassador a firm can have and an investment here can pay great dividends both internally and externally.
The success of a firm’s approach in constructing an integrated action plan around employee engagement can be measured in part by the strength of the relationship between a firm’s human resources department and its marketing/communications team. Building a strong bridge between the two departments from the beginning provides a significantly stronger operating platform than if the two departments approached the plan separately.
At the core of the human resources (HR)/marketing connection is the notion of linkage and alignment. For example, brand building initiatives are simply more effective when there is ample attention paid to the internal communications and buy-in process. Taking a brand building initiative as an opportunity to engage your attorneys and staff early in the process helps almost any external marketing effort in the longer-term.
Communication is at the crux of the HR/marketing partnership. The challenges of employee engagement are not materially different that those challenges faced around change management, and communications is the foundation of all of the following: a shared sense of purpose and vision, a sharing of information across multiple levels and through multiple channels, development of feedback mechanisms and a willingness to openly debate and comment, clarity of career path options and opportunities and the celebration of successes...shared achievements, teamwork and the belief that one’s personal investment has contributed to the greater good.
It is impossible to over-communicate when you are working to build cohesiveness, clarity and a sense of community. The challenge is to broaden the ways in which we are communicating, as different audiences and different generations of employees respond to different types and styles of communication. An increasing challenge is finding ways to communicate face-to-face. Too often, there can be an over-reliance on electronic broadcast messaging and smaller group meetings need to be built into the plan to augment the larger mass communications mode.
So what are some of the specific actions that the marketing/HR team can undertake in the near term to jump start employee engagement? The first is in the development and communication of career path opportunities and the firm’s commitment and investment in its people at all stages of their development. Some of this may be developed as part of professional development and training initiatives and the introduction of specific training for administrative employees. However, as administrative departments mature in larger law firms, career path issues have become increasingly challenging for those at the senior level of the organisation. Firms will be challenged to address these issues as the market for experienced senior level administrators continues to become more competitive.
Another idea is to break down barriers between functional departments. A highly successful approach that I’ve seen work well is to institute an annual managers off-site or full-day session, at which all the administrative managers get together as a team regardless of whether they are in IT, finance, HR or marketing. They are able to share experiences and challenges across a broad array of geographies and practices, and the end result is that a stronger sense of community has been built - an ‘anti-silo’ approach that works on a horizontal and not a vertical plain.
Certainly this establishment of communities within the larger community is a worthwhile and effective approach. We have seen this work well in many firms with women’s initiatives, diversity initiatives and community relations teams. Other effective approaches have been the use of feedback mechanisms to solicit input and identify areas of need or concern – employee satisfaction surveys, suggestion boxes, use of an intranet or internal site as a community two-way communications venue. What about the various ‘best places to work’ lists? In addition to the obvious benefits of being included on the lists, there is a powerful employee engagement tool in the process of the surveying, data collection, communications and related efforts around the submission. While making a given list may be the end game, there is an extraordinary amount of value to be gained simply by going through the process. Not only do you have wealth of data from your employees on what matters to them, but you are able to establish a baseline and benchmarks for future progress measurement. It can give you a very concrete view of where you need to focus your efforts in both the short and long-term. Similarly, nominating people for awards and recognition is great way to help build good will and create good publicity. Sharing successes both internally and externally cannot be underestimated. There is enormous value in acknowledging wins both small and large. Recognizing people through ‘longevity lunches’, staff appreciation events, client service awards and other employee recognition campaigns are powerful and meaningful, particularly when they are part of larger integrated plan. Survey after survey shows that while compensation is always an important part of any package, people want to be recognized and they want to feel that they are part of a team.
A good (and effective) employee engagement plan is ultimately one that is linked to what matters to the firm and what matters to the firm’s clients. It is about breaking down silos that can inhibit efficiency and identifying those areas where people feel disconnected to the firm’s values or its goals and working on solutions. At the core of the combined marketing/HR partnership as it relates to employee engagement is one simple objective: creating – and embracing – a culture of inclusivity. n

Anne Malloy Tucker is chief marketing officer at US law firm Goodwin Procter. She can be contacted at AMalloy@goodwinprocter.com