You might think hybrid working is an out-of-date topic for law firms, with policies well-established over the past five years since the pandemic. However, the debate about remote work continues to rumble on with return to the office mandates, evolving workplace dynamics and its impact on talent attraction all issues.
Much of the rhetoric around hybrid working focuses on two competing aims – the desire of management to see more in-office attendance by younger lawyers, business support and legal professionals, and the need for flexibility and workplace independence from the same cohort.
For management, the argument goes that this cohort isn’t learning or developing quickly enough without in-office work. There is some anecdotal evidence this may be true. A recent attendee at a Totum event shared how their firm had compared performance of trainees who onboarded remotely during COVID versus those who trained in-person subsequently.
“We found performance is overwhelmingly much lower among the covid cohort – remote training had a huge effect on them,” said the attendee.
Impact of hybrid on connection
Other attendees had similar views on the impact of remote training on junior employees – and this is backed up by a recent Value of the Office survey by the Lawyer.
When asked to choose on a scale of one to five how important being in the office was for development, 31% of trainees said it was extremely important, with just 10% choosing not at all important. When it came to business services, just 13% believed it was extremely important to be in the office for development, with a quarter saying it was not at all important – the second highest among all levels.
Business services functions were also one of the least likely grouping to feel like hybrid working affected their personal connections. More than half (54%) felt that they had neither lost nor gained personal connections through hybrid – the highest cohort – with a quarter (26%) saying they had lost connections. For comparison, 56% of partners and 40% of senior associates felt they had lost personal connections due to hybrid working.
There are also a number of quantitative studies that suggest just that hybrid working actually boosts productivity and performance. Nicholas Bloom is a Stanford University economist and a leading researcher on remote working policies. In 2024, he released the findings of a six month trial investigating the effects of hybrid working on 1,612 employees at Chinese tech company Trip.com.
He found that employees who worked from home for two days a week were just as productive and as likely to be promoted as their fully office-based peers. The study also showed that attrition among workers who moved from full-time office work to a hybrid schedule fell by a third, saving the company millions of dollars.
“The results are clear: Hybrid work is a win-win-win for employee productivity, performance and retention,” said Bloom on the study’s release.
Hybrid working patterns
But is it really? We’ve already seen above that there are potential downsides to hybrid working. A recent study by Totum Partners and Managing Partners’ Forum examined hybrid working policies across 41 professional services firms. Alongside statistical insights into how firms are managing hybrid working – detailed below – we also asked respondents for their take on what they’re seeing in their firms.
One survey respondent discussed how ‘expectations have changed, with a good employee experience vital, not a nice to have’. For this person, ‘hybrid working makes it harder to ensure that people are fully-engaged and not semi-detached’ from work.
Another talked about ‘the need to trust employees to do the right thing, but also for employees to trust leadership on when in person time is valuable’. In many organisations, they continued, ‘the scales are out of balance’.
On the data side, our survey found that all 41 firms had an established hybrid working policy, and, despite the noise, 80% said they were not considering increasing the time people were expected to come into the office. The most popular working pattern among firms was three days in and two days remote, with 51% choosing this option.
However, it’s important to note that the survey doesn’t contain any data from US firms, where in-office attendance is higher. Four days in the office and one remote is much more common for US-headquartered firms.
When asked what the primary reason was for employees spending time in the office, 80% said to improve collaboration and communication, 68% wanted to strengthen company culture, and 36% said it was a preference of leadership.
Interestingly, more than a third (39%) of firms said they were monitoring employees’ attendance in the office. When attendance was not satisfactory, most firms reported informal conversations rather than punitive action, with 95% getting managers to discuss the issue and 38% asking HR to do so.
However, 13% said they now take in-office attendance into consideration when deciding on bonus awards. This comes after A&O Shearman reminded junior lawyers that bonuses may be affected if they do not comply with office attendance policies back in March, following on from news that Addleshaw Goddard is monitoring attendance data as part of performance reviews.
When asked what reasons were stopping employees from coming into the office, common reasons included ‘not wanting to commute’ (78%), ‘cost of living and travel’ (73%) and ‘being used to the flexibility of working at home’ (73%). However, another reason of note for leaders is ‘leaders/managers not coming into the office’, which 68% of respondents chose. If leaders aren’t willing to walk the walk on returning to the office, then don’t expect employees to follow.
So what is motivating firms to want employees to return to the office? Perhaps it is partly a generational difference. Senior management and lawyers thrived in the era of long days five, six or even seven days a week, proving their mettle by being constantly available. Often, they believe that presenteeism is just part of the package when it comes to working in law and professional services.
“The values of social connection and interaction, and that work can be more than work and provide a sense of purpose, connection and belonging is vital,” said one leader in our survey.“Encouraging this connection, interaction and engagement is how you build high-performing, well-connected teams that support each other – because they know each other beyond the Zoom screen,” they added.
Meeting employee expectations
Having junior employees in the office around them means they can better control what they are doing and when they are doing it. They can call impromptu meetings when something needs to be done urgently, or have a conversation at their own convenience. Yes, all this could be done remotely too, but it just doesn’t seem quite so easy.
Then there are the issues raised above about training and onboarding. Many subscribe to the theory that firms can only properly train new hires with an increase in-office face time. While it is undoubtedly true that some work and learning gets done better when people are together, perhaps it is better to create policies that reflect this, rather than mandate a return to the office. For training, set certain days aside for in-office learning, rather than a blanket five days a week in the office.
This is the area that is often misunderstood. Associates and junior employees understand that they might not be able to work remotely all the time, but what they want is the flexibility to do so. Most understand that some work needs to be done with people together, but what they don’t want is to be required to be in the office when it’s not needed.
“Transparent messaging and feedback is really important when it comes to setting expectations for younger generations. Be clear about expectations around flexible working and how that works in a purposeful organisation,” suggested one commenter in our survey.
The debate about hybrid working in professional services is far from over. With technology and the impact of AI set to further confuse matters, hybrid working policies will continue to evolve over the coming years.
If you are interested in learning more about the issues shaping firm’ people agendas, either through an in-person presentation or event, please contact Tim Skipper [email protected]