Education is the Key to Your Organization’s Flex Success®

When implementing a flexible work initiative, it’s important to remember that everyone in the organization has a role in its success. Whether working a flexible schedule or not, everyone must understand the importance of the policy and fulfill his or her role in supporting it. Flex education tailored to the myriad professionals with differing perspectives throughout the organization is key to the success of the flex policy.

At the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance, we advise organizations to offer three different types of flexibility education customized for three different audiences within your organization:

Flex Professionals must understand their role and responsibilities. Educational components for flex professionals must encompass the importance of understanding exactly what is expected of the individual in the flex agreement. The flex professionals should be trained in the following skills:

    1. Articulating exactly what they hope to achieve through the flex schedule and what they intend to accomplish in their career development;
    2. Demonstrating commitment to their schedules and careers;
    3. Exploring realistic approaches to communications and face-time expectations;
    4. Providing workable solutions to devoting time to important aspects of career development including business development and organizational citizenship;
    5. Maintaining visibility even when physically out of the office;
    6. Leveraging technology;
    7. Handling bias.

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Open Communication on Flex Is Vital to Recruiting the Next Generation

This article, by Manar Morales, President & CEO of the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance, was published in the June 2017 issue of the NALP Bulletin.  We very much appreciated the opportunity to provide this guest article and we are reprinting it here on our blog with permission from NALP.

 

Recruiting the top talent from law schools used to be relatively straightforward. Large law firms enticed students with glossy brochures, “swag bags” of gifts, and six-figure starting salaries. The top payers got the top recruits. In 2017, the equation is not so simple. It’s clear that the new generation of law school graduates is looking for more than a big paycheck. In fact, recent surveys show that compensation isn’t at the top of the list of what they’re looking for in potential employers.

Today’s law school graduates want a firm that shares their generation’s unique values. Millennials want a firm culture that supports corporate social responsibility and pro bono work, teamwork, professional development, mentorship, and, in particular, flexible work options. Even if they don’t need flex right after graduation, they view open communication on flex as a sign that the firm has a culture that supports a work-life balance.

Millennials are the largest and most diverse generation in the workforce today. Because of the relatively small size of their predecessor generation, Generation X, law firms will need to recruit more millennials to fill their partnership ranks in the foreseeable future. In fact, by 2020 millennials will comprise 46% of the workforce. It’s now more important than ever for firms to evolve and address the need for flex and engage this new generation.

While millennials seem to be driving the open conversations on flex, it’s clear that everyone wants it, and everyone needs it at some point in their career. In fact, baby boomers are staying in the workforce longer and are using flex to slowly phase out rather than retire completely. Generation X is now the “sandwich generation” that needs flex to care for children as well as aging parents.

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Ladder Down: Success Strategies For Lawyers From Women Who Will Be Hiring, Reviewing, and Promoting You

June 2017

Featuring — Lauren Stiller Rikleen, President, Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership

Today, the path to success is harder than ever. Excellence at one’s craft is simply a baseline. Lawyers also face the challenges of maintaining and bringing in new clients, undertaking organizational leadership roles, participating in professional associations, and engaging in one’s community. Each of these challenges can represent either tremendous opportunity or overwhelming stress. The goal is to meet these challenges with a sense of excitement at what the future holds.
Lauren Stiller Rikleen (author of, You Raised Us, Now Work with Us) discusses strategies and highlights from her newest book and research, Ladder Down: Success Strategies for Lawyers from Women Who Will be Hiring, Reviewing, and Promoting You. Through the advice collected from successful women practitioners around the world and shared in her book, Lauren will discuss strategies to help you re-energize and reclaim your career path. (You can purchase Lauren’s newest book HERE.)

Business Development: An Integral Part of Your Flex Success®

This is the sixth in a series of seven blog posts featuring advice on our Seven Strategies for Flex Success®. Check back as we walk you through the seven steps that will guarantee your success while working flexibly: Define Your Success; Own Your Value; Activate Your Mindset; Create A Strong Personal Brand; Build Your Networks; Expand Your Ideas on Business Development; and Enhance Your Work-Life Control.

No matter what industry you’re in, it’s always good to stay one step ahead of your business, your clients, your customers or your marketplace. You always want to be thinking about tomorrow and where your career is headed and where your income is coming from. While you might approach business development in a slightly different manner in light of your flexible schedule, it’s still imperative that you dedicate time to business development and to generating your future revenue.

The sixth strategy in our Seven Strategies for Flex Success® is Expand Your Business Development. Whether you’re working with clients or reporting to internal supervisors, make sure you’re demonstrating a deep understanding of their needs, business realities and serving as a trusted advisor to help them accomplish their current and future goals. To help you build future clients, projects and customers, you should turn to the network of colleagues, mentors, sponsors and former classmates that you built in the Fifth Strategy (Build Your Networks and Personal Board of Advisors). This network can help you expand your reach and enhance your ideas on business development, key elements to creating more autonomy in your career and ultimately greater work-life control.

You may be concerned about investing time in business development when you’re working a reduced hours schedule and therefore already have less time for work. However, many professionals working a reduced hours schedule have told us that their flexible schedule has allowed them to excel at business development and, in fact, has become integral to their career success. It’s important to incorporate time into your flex schedule for business development as well as for activities that will raise your personal profile such as speaking engagements, publishing articles and papers and networking.

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Action Step – Feedback Essentials Part 2: How to Get the Feedback You Need

The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility.  Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center. 

FEEDBACK ESSENTIALS PART 2: HOW TO GET THE FEEDBACK YOU NEED

In Part 1 of this Action Step, we focused on delivering feedback effectively, which is one side of what should be a two-way conversation. While it may seem the individual providing the feedback is doing all the work, the recipient has an equally important role to play, including initiating the discussion when needed. Following these steps will help you carry out your responsibility to get feedback and make the most of what you receive.

Ask for It: Research shows many lawyers and other professionals feel they receive feedback too infrequently from their supervisors, and find it difficult to improve their performance as a result. While supervisors retain responsibility to provide feedback, professionals can and should be proactive in seeking this information. For example, rather than waiting to hear how things are going in an annual performance review, you can initiate ‘check-ins’ with supervisors at natural intervals, such as when projects are completed…

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Spotlight on Flex – Jessica Brown

The Spotlight on Flex showcases professionals from member organizations who exemplify personal and professional success while working a flexible schedule. Their stories illustrate the long-term benefits that flexible schedules offer to both individuals and organizations.

This month, we are pleased to share insights from Jessica Brown, Partner, in the Denver, CO Office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.

Jessica BrownDiversity & Flexibility Alliance: How have you made flexibility a priority and a success through your career?

Jessica Brown: It’s almost surprising to me, but I’ve been at the firm for more than 22 years. I was a summer associate here, clerked for a judge after graduating from law school, and then started as an associate in January 1995.

I made partner effective 2002, had my first child in 2006, and started working a reduced hours schedule in 2007. There have been times when I’ve been working full time hours or traveling extensively, and I have to be able to roll with that. I never expect to work reduced hours on a daily or weekly basis but rather over the course of the year. Fortunately, I have an incredible support system through my husband, our nanny, and the firm.

I’m in the office every day, and I’m required to bill 1300 hours per year. I don’t adhere to a set schedule because I don’t know how that could work in a client services industry. You could have an “aspirational schedule,” where you choose to be off or work from home a certain day of the week, but it’s important to be flexible about your flexibility. Work priorities won’t always align with your schedule, and you have to adjust seamlessly.

For me, working every day makes sense because I’m always busy, though not always with billable work. I recently reviewed my hours for the past five years and was amazed to find that I worked almost the exact same number of total hours each year. The only thing that fluctuated was the ratio of my billable hours to my non-billable (e.g., community service and pro bono) hours.

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Are you Approaching Your Law Career With Enthusiasm? 5 Reasons You Should Join us for “Ladder Down” with Lauren Stiller Rikleen

If you’re an attorney (or even a law student), you know that it’s not enough to just be good at your job. In 2017, you’re expected to go the extra mile and bring in new business, take on leadership roles in your firm, network with your peers, and join professional organizations. How can you manage all of these demands and embrace them as opportunities to advance your career and achieve fulfillment? Have you become overwhelmed and is your enthusiasm for your career fading?

Join us for our Signature Seminar Series and you’ll hear from Lauren Stiller Rikleen, author of Ladder Down: Success Strategies for Lawyers From Women Who Will be Hiring, Reviewing, and Promoting You. Lauren’s webinar will take place from 1:00 – 2:15 pm ET on Thursday, June 8 and is free to all Alliance Members.

Here are five reasons you should join us and learn how to approach your law career with enthusiasm:

    1. Learn how to create a “niche” practice by developing your own personal brand.
    2. Acquire leadership skills that will differentiate you from others.
    3. Gain insights into effective networking.
    4. Develop successful mentor and champion relationships
    5. Hear tips on advocating for yourself and finding better work-life balance.

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Spotlight on Flex – Jennifer Nowlin

The Spotlight on Flex showcases professionals from member organizations who exemplify personal and professional success while working a flexible schedule. Their stories illustrate the long-term benefits that flexible schedules offer to both individuals and organizations.

This month, we are pleased to share insights from Jennifer Nowlin, Associate General Counsel, Labor and Employment, in the Bentonville, AR Office of Walmart Legal.

Jennifer NowlinDiversity & Flexibility Alliance: How have you made flexibility a priority and a success through your career? 

Jennifer Nowlin: I started practicing law as a commercial litigator at a Dallas firm. I’d been practicing for less than one year when my husband was offered a job at Walmart in Bentonville, AR. We had to decide whether it was time for us to relocate, but I knew my marketability was limited with such little experience under my belt. From the beginning, Walmart supported my family’s needs; the company allowed us to stay in Dallas while my husband traveled back and forth to Bentonville. We kept this arrangement for a year and finally relocated to Bentonville when I joined Walmart’s legal department in 2005. I started with the employment practices legal team, but in 2009, I joined the legal team supporting labor relations, and I’ve been with them ever since.

Walmart had developed a Professional Work Option Program, and when I had my first child in 2007, I was one of the early participants in it. I really wanted to spend time at home with my newborn, but I also wasn’t ready to stop working all together. I talked with my supervisor at the time, and she encouraged me to develop different work scenarios that would work for me. If my first choice wasn’t accepted, then I would move on to my next scenario and so forth. My first choice was to work a 3/5 schedule which meant three days in the office, and two days off.

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Action Step – Feedback Essentials Part 1: Delivering Feedback Effectively

The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility.  Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center. 

FEEDBACK ESSENTIALS PART 1: DELIVERING FEEDBACK EFFECTIVELY

Feedback is critical to career advancement, but research shows women and other under-represented professionals are much less likely than their majority group counterparts to receive the kind of constructive feedback necessary to improve performance. The reasons for this vary, but common ones include supervisors’ concerns they will be perceived in a negative light and fear that the person receiving feedback will leave. These issues are particularly pronounced when feedback is being provided across differences. This introduces additional challenges to an aspect of managing and leading others that many supervisors would prefer to avoid. Overcoming these challenges, however, is essential to fostering the success of all talent, and applying the following best practices provides supervisors with a framework to successfully meet this responsibility….

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Troutman Sanders LLP Welcomed As Newest Member of the Alliance

We are pleased to welcome Troutman Sanders LLP as the newest member of the Alliance! The firm joins a community of over 60 leading organizations that are implementing innovative solutions to promote inclusive and flexible work cultures.

Troutman Sanders

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