There have been reports recently that the Government have asked up to 40% of Whitehall staff to work from home during next year's Olympics. The Government have urged other business to consider the benefits of letting employees work from home.
It's not an unusual thing. I read recently that BT, for example, have 15,000 homeworkers out of a total staff of 92,000. The telecoms giant says that on average homeworkers save the company £6,000 per year, take fewer days off sick and are roughly 20% more productive. HSBC it seems are another proponent of home working and apparent have 5000 staff working from home regularly with 40% of their 35000 staff having the ability to work from home.
And yet for lawyers, in my experience, working from home is a luxury, a perk, that you get with partnership. That, and being able to claim more petrol receipts.
But why is that?
I've seen lots of figures like those quoted above by BT in the past. Less sick days, more productivity, happier staff. Working from home and flexible working should be a much higher priority for any business, never mind the stress haven that is a law firm.
I can imagine most partners being like my old boss ”I'm not paying you to sit in your pajamas on Twitter all day" (which he never said - doubt he knew what Twitter was but oh the joys of self-employment!). I have this, perhaps misconception, that most business owners don't trust their employees enough to let them work from home.
But home working would definitely work for lawyers, it would for me. The fact is, most lawyers are required to bill a certain amount each day/week/month/year. Online shopping and Facebook will quickly reduce your billable hours and would be picked up immediately.
The systems are all set up for home working, most lawyers already access their emails from home or on the mobile. Technically, this is done usually with Microsoft Server software, which allows remote access to your work server, with all it's documents on. Indeed, the case management system used at my old place was actually "in the cloud" too, meaning that staff could work from home if they were allowed.
But what this actually meant in practice was: "after you've finished your 9-10 hour day or 50 hour week, you can do more billing at home instead of going to the pub!".
As an aside, I once asked for a laptop when I was going on Holiday for 3 weeks to Hong Kong and was refused in the basis that I shouldn't work while on holiday. I got emails to my personal account anyway.
Most of my clients would work from home a least once or twice a week ”to get some work done". It seems most people realise that without the phone calls or the open plan chatter, at home you can actually focus and crack on with stuff.
I would've loved the opportunity to work from home when drafting pleadings, employment handbooks or other lengthy documents, but it just wasn't part of the ethos. I reckon an 8 hour job in the office would be a 5 hour job at home.
I'm sure that there are lots of more modern firms, perhaps the city firms, that do allow more flexible working, and I'd love to hear from lawyers that do get that opportunity.
But it seems to me that the partners are missing a trick not letting people work from home more often.
Anyway, Cash In The Attic's on, so I've got to go!
About the Author
Steven Mather can help you get happier litigation clients. Check out his website <a href="http://resolveyourdispute.co.uk">Resolve Your Dispute</a> for more information.
