Many industries have preached about the benefits and the success of agile working, claiming it allows businesses to empower employees and give them flexibility. Whilst the legal industry in the UK is getting used to the idea of a more flexible working system, we are still lacking. This sort of working environment would probably suit a lot of people. Perhaps some employers should consider creating a survey to see if their employees would be interested in agile working. To learn more about writing questions for a survey, employers could visit https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/writing-survey-questions/ to make sure their survey is as good as possible. With this feedback, employers can make decisions based on the opinions of those who will be impacted.
The benefits of agile working, both for employers and employees, cannot be ignored.
The benefits of agile working
For lawyers and other legal professionals, flexible working offers an opportunity to meet the demands of their family, personal obligations, and other life admin that needs to be balanced all at once.
Flexible working is convenient, particularly for parents who are having to think about childcare, school meetings, and child illnesses. Plus, for employees working from home this method of working reduces commuting time and how much they pay in travel costs which are tangible benefits that can’t be ignored.
From a mental health point of view, allowing employees to determine their own schedule and environment can reduce employee burnout which will in turn shape a more productive and empowered workforce. Because of these factors, it has never been more important for a business to take care of the health and wellbeing of their employees. Places like Eden Health (https://www.edenhealth.com/blog/why-employee-health-wellbeing-matters/) further stresses the importance of a healthy workforce and they suggest ways on how you can ensure that not only the physical health, but the mental health of everyone in their workforce is kept as healthy as possible.
Of course, there are ways to connect everyone anyway, so it doesn’t really matter where certain individuals are located. If lawyers ever needed to collaborate on a case, they could always use their business phone system to make calls to people, no matter where they are. This could allow remote workers to stay in touch with those who might prefer to be in the office. Law firms should really visit this website if they need to get one of those phones set up for their workers.
Employers are realising that not everyone is the same. Some of us work best at 7am, whereas some of us work best at 10pm and it’s time to realise that there is nothing wrong with this, and for legal bosses to allow people to work when they feel at their best.
With flexible/agile work schedules, an organisation can see these benefits:
- Increased employee morale
- Reduced absenteeism and tardiness.
- Reduced turnover of valued staff.
- Extended hours of operation for departments that require it.
- Reduced overheads.
Going one step further with legal resourcing
Another huge trend is the rise in legal resourcing, where organisations hire a lawyer or team of lawyers for a set project or timescale.
This method completely reduces the overheads involved in hiring an in-house legal team, whilst allowing businesses to get the core legal support that they need in order to function. Both lawyers and organisations reap the benefits of flexible legal resourcing, with more freedom being available on both sides.
