Does ‘Thank You’ Help Keep Associates? from CareerJournal.com takes a look at turnover/retention issues at a major law firm. Scary, I know. However, there is a good lesson in here in regards to retaining top employees.
First the setup from the article:
Faced with a surge in turnover of its associates, the prestigious law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP has been putting on a charm offensive to hold onto junior lawyers.
The presentation showed that the New York firm, now with about 625 lawyers, lost 31% of its associates in 2004 and 30% in 2005. The average associate attrition rate for law firms of about that size or bigger for 2004 was 21%, up from 16% in 2002, according to a study by the National Association for Law Placement.
30% turnover! That is a staggering number when you think of the highly-skilled legal profession. Now, since they are lawyers they needed consulting help on something that probably seems trivial to you and me.
To deal with low associate morale and high attrition, a confidential slide presentation reviewed by The Wall Street Journal urged partners to say things like “thank you” and “good work” to associates they supervise.
Yes, it would seem the lawyers needed a high-powered slide presentation to explain good managerial etiquette. This caught my eye:
What else should partners do? “Return associates’ phone calls as quickly as you would a partner’s or client’s,” said one bullet. “Be sensitive to not canceling associates’ vacations,” said another.
Canceling vacations? Ah, yeah, don’t do that. In all seriousness, it is fun to make light of lawyers but I have encountered this behavior in sales roles too.
I once worked for a difficult sales manager who rarely gave out compliments and when he did, it was little more than a throw-away line – “Good job.” That was the extent of it. Of course, he was often enthused to offer criticism. In those instances I would usually receive a dissertation from him.
That behavior establishes the culture of the department and defines the morale. I realize managing is difficult and being a friend is not necessarily in the best interest of the company. But a manager does need to respect the employee’s effort, be fair in their management decisions and make sure their empathetically aware of the employee’s perspective. I believe that approach will have the greatest impact on improving employee retention.
Even in a law firm.