Orientation Questions As law firms grow and technology becomes more complex, orientation programs for new associates and staff members are starting to look like seminars. We recently spoke with a Washington, DC firm that proudly has a full week orientation for new staff members (three days of which is technology training). But for the new employee, orientation is a mind numbing affair where a common complaint is “I don’t even know enough to ask a question.”
In the past couple of weeks, we have worked with several firms who are taking the “less is more” approach to orientation. The program, which is separated from technology training, takes only two hours and is designed to teach the employee how to search answers to questions as they come up on the firm’s intranet using its key word search function. The system also keeps track of the answers to the most common search questions in a FAQ section for each general topic. The view is that handing people a thick manual or putting them through a rapid-fire presentation may meet the firm’s legal responsibilities but does little to help the employee become fully productive. It makes more sense to get them on the job sooner and respond to questions as they arise.
There seem to be two other trends in orientation. The first is a “take home forms packet”. Rather than a marathon signing session where employees fill out countless tax and benefit forms, the employee receives a packet of material to take home and complete prior to their starting day. This allows them to consult with their spouse, former employers or their tax preparer as they complete the forms.
The second trend is highly specialized technology training in which a trainer sits with a new employee at their worksite for their first half day to provide one-on-one training on the unique features of the firm’s technology while assessing the employees learning needs for MS suite programs.
HR Director Survey Legal Week, a leading UK law firm management periodical, interviewed 55 senior law firm human resources professionals at large law firms with offices in London. They were asked to identify the key strategic issues facing their firm. The main challenges all center on the development and retention of their people, including:
• planning and managing their careers more closely, • investing more time in them as individuals, • managing their performance more proactively, • helping people grow within the business and • ensuring the right quality and fit when recruiting new staff.
While this is all motherhood and apple pie (or whatever the British equivalent is) there is a bit of hypocrisy involved. While 86% of respondents cite retention as the most significant issue facing the legal, just 40% of them believe it is a major issue for their firm.
Legal Administrator Training A question we hear quite often from clients is where to find top quality management skills training for law firm senior administrators. Professional conferences seem to be increasingly geared to small firms and commercial seminars are too simplistic. So we have made a point of asking law firm administrators and training directors where they found their best training sources. The most consistent and enthusiastic answer was the Disney Institute. Located at Disney World in Florida, Disney offers a variety of courses on their methods of hiring, transferring culture, instilling loyalty, team work and quality client service. Most interesting is that they use the theme park as their learning laboratory as training participants apply what they learn to actual job applicants, employees (they call them cast members) and clients (guests). Programs last 3 ½ days and are a bit pricey, but every alumni we talked to said it was well worth the cost. (http://www.disneyinstitute.com).
Unique Job Title A client firm has a Knowledge Concierge. The position is responsible for helping lawyers access information in the firm’s knowledge management resources. The former title was librarian.
Legal Resource Group LLC specializes in serving the executive and administrative recruiting needs of law firms. We maintain the largest data base of law firm executive and Administrative staff in the world. This allows us to immediately identify the very best candidates. We find the best people, complete searches faster and have extremely reasonable fees. For further information, visit our website at www.LRGLLC.com , contact us by e-mail at inquiries@LRGLLC.com or by phone at 1-800-688-4147.
