Flexible working has many benefits, from helping employees to manage competing responsibilities, to turning once-long commutes into a productive period of work. This model of working is, however, still relatively new, and particularly for junior colleagues may introduce risks that legal firms should be cautious not to overlook.
In this article, we outline the risks to wellbeing, supervision, and security and propose a few risk mitigation measures to keep them in check.
Wellbeing
The shift to flexible forms of working poses risks to wellbeing. With more of the workforce working away from the traditional office, connections and friendships between colleagues may be harder to establish. This may leave employees feeling isolated or alone during work.
In the legal sector, this has the potential to exacerbate wellbeing concerns among a group that is already one of the worst affected. A high-pressure environment, long hours and heavy workloads can make the legal sector a challenging place to work for many. According to the Law Society’s Practising Certificate Holder Survey (opens a new window), published in April 2023, solicitors score lower than the UK average on all positive measures of wellbeing, and junior solicitors in particular are more likely to rate their level of anxiety at a higher rate.
Many law firms and organisations have responded to these, and other wellbeing concerns, by introducing wellbeing-focused initiatives and promoting an open, inclusive culture. Firms should consider implementing a clear policy on stress, physical and mental health that explicitly acknowledges the challenges posed by remote working. Employees may not feel comfortable raising wellbeing concerns with their supervisor, from whom they may feel a pressure to perform. Therefore, firms should ensure colleagues are offered Mental Wellbeing awareness training on managing wellbeing and stress, and should be offered guidance on the process involved in raising concerns to their line manager or Human Resources or People Engagement contact. Enabling colleagues to proactively seek external support services including Employee Assistance Programmes or other online resources ensures specialist support can be swiftly accessed. Managers should be trained to recognise the signs and symptoms of stress, bearing in mind that wellbeing concerns may be harder to spot in a flexible working arrangement. Employees should also be encouraged to maximise their wellbeing, for instance, by taking regular breaks and using their allotted holiday allowance.
Training
One risk of of flexible working is that junior lawyers will be less likely to be exposed to the variety of work found in the office. Gone are the days of ad hoc client meetings where a trainee solicitor may be invited on short notice to take notes, opening the door to ongoing involvement in a range of client work. Even less likely is that junior lawyers will overhear and participate in discussions between colleagues as to the best approach to take to a complex legal problem.
How, then, can supervisors ensure their mentees receive the same exposure to a varied range of work in this flexible working world? Trainees and junior lawyers will likely benefit from attending the office as much as possible to learn from their colleagues, build relationships and raise their profile. Supervisors should maximise delegation of work where appropriate and prioritise collaboration across teams to ensure junior colleagues have the opportunity to experience a variety of complex and interesting legal work. Simply remembering to involve a trainee even where a meeting, call or court hearing is taking place online is also key.
The potential for decreased exposure may result in less awareness of other practice areas, business sectors, and the legal market more generally for junior colleagues, making focused training sessions ever more important. Most workplaces offering in-house CPD adapted quickly to the need for virtual seminars and training, particularly for trainee and junior solicitors, arranging webinars and using online training platforms. While online training provides more flexibility, it can reduce levels of engagement and interaction. Employers may wish to consider providing online training in smaller, focused groups, or make use of breakout rooms to encourage discussion. Holding in-person sessions where possible is also beneficial to increase engagement and relationship building.
Supervision
Agile working may also mean less direct supervision for junior colleagues. Supervisors should provide a clear chain of management and support and build strong, collaborative relationships to ensure trainees and junior lawyers feel empowered to obtain input, guidance, and approval. Clear governance should be in place, ensuring supervisees know the bounds of their autonomy and what work is subject to review/approval. Supervisors also need to understand supervisees’ workloads to ensure they are manageable, particularly where they report into several lawyers. Failure to take such steps may lead to avoidable mistakes for which supervisors may be held accountable.
Similarly, where supervisors have less in-person contact with the solicitors they work with, the risk of missed deadlines and communication errors increases. Regular check-ins with colleagues, even virtually, remain crucial. Diarising key dates in calendars, beyond that of the main handling solicitor (avoiding a single point of failure) is nothing new, but again, important. Firms may also elect to use the numerous technological developments available to assist in case management and should ensure all colleagues are fully trained to make the most of those tools.
Security and privacy
Data and privacy risks are increasingly prevalent in an agile workplace. Many employers have dedicated IT and office management teams working round the clock to ensure security of data in the physical and cyber spaces. However, when working remotely or outside of core working hours colleagues require to take proactive individual steps to manage and mitigate those risks.
Physical security of documents and data is ever more important as remote and hybrid working increases. Laptops and papers will be on the move more often, requiring care to be taken by staff, extra security on devices and reduced printing where possible. As colleagues work in more varied spaces, including those shared with friends and family, steps need to be taken to limit and ideally exclude what is seen and heard by others, for example by locking screens, stepping away to take certain phone calls and turning off voice recognition assistants.
Phishing and other fraudulent cyber activity is on the rise and cyber breaches can result in serious consequences for the legal profession. As remote working practices have become more sophisticated, so too have the attacks of scammers. Employers should ensure firm-issued hardware such as laptops and mobile phones have updates regularly pushed out.
Employers should ensure robust data security policies are in place, supplemented by regular training to educate and enforce those. Processes should be established to confirm completion of (and engagement with) training by all colleagues, particularly those working with client and business confidential information and those handling funds. All colleagues working in or adjacent to the legal profession with access to payment and finance systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks and so employers should implement robust procedures for approvals and cross-checking of payments to minimise the opportunity for fraudsters to intercept funds.
Flexibility is key. Agile working in the post-pandemic world has the potential to improve working life and productivity for many. To maximise the benefits of the hybrid and agile models, firms will need to ensure their risk management strategies are similarly flexible and adaptive to the changing workplace.
The Law Society has published guidance on good practice for remote supervision of junior staff and trainee solicitors which can be accessed here (opens a new window).
