Tag Archive for: Flexibility

It’s All About Marketing

This is the fourth 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.

The Fourth Step to Ensuring Your Flex Success™ –
Create A Strong Personal Brand

Seven Strategies For Flex SuccessIn Step Two of our Seven Strategies for Flex Success™ you worked on Owning Your Value. You identified what makes you unique and what only you can bring to the table.   Knowing what makes you special gives you confidence and self-esteem. The fourth strategy revolves around harnessing this self-esteem and creating your personal brand. Just as a corporation would market a product, you need to market yourself to make sure others perceive you the way you want to be perceived.

There is power in perception.

As a professional working a flexible schedule, it’s particularly important to control how others see you to counteract flex stigma that others in your office may harbor.

Make sure that you are speaking positively about your schedule and your work. Remember that how you talk about yourself drives how others are talking about you. Ask for feedback about how people perceive you. In particular, ask your mentor or sponsor if others have a positive perception of you and your work and how you can improve your image. Your career trajectory not only depends on the quality of your work but also your reputation as someone who is serious about your own success and the success of the organization.

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Appreciation At Home and At the Office

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, we at the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance want to thank our friends and members for their ongoing support and trust. We truly appreciate being surrounded by a community of intelligent, enthusiastic, thoughtful leaders who are invested in helping firms and organizations renew their commitment to diversity and flexibility.

In this day and age of constant contact and access to work, we are also thankful for the time to be with our families face to face and, at least for a few moments, disconnect from the office. We encourage you to do so too.

As flexibility is always top of mind, we also want to encourage you to take the time to appreciate your organization’s flexible work program. There’s a term that professional organization strategists use called “Appreciative Inquiry.” It refers to examining and highlighting the positive aspects of a business initiative to create a positive culture. We encourage you to examine and highlight the best features in your flex program and draw on these strengths as you expand and develop it. Read more

The Third Step to Ensuring Your Flex Success™ – Activate Your Mindset and Grit to Overcome Flex Stigma

This is the third 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.

seven-strategies-for-flex-successWe’re not going to lie to you. It’s not always going to be easy to transition from being in the office full-time to a flexible work schedule. While many industries have come a long way in understanding the value flexible work policies provide, biases still exist. No matter where you work, you may come across co-workers who think you’re less committed to the job because you work reduced hours. You may also be faced with supervisors who question your time at home and whether you are actually working when you’re not physically in the office.

It’s best to be prepared for these obstacles, and when they do arise, it’s important to maintain your confidence and harness your grit. You know you are meeting the needs and deadlines of your team and clients. You know you are following your company’s flexible work policy guidelines as well as your own personal flex plan. And, you know the quality of your work has not diminished at all (in fact it may have improved.)

Most of these hurdles and biases should be temporary bumps in the road. Activate your “big-picture,” growth mindset and remind yourself that working flexibly is actually better for you and your organization because it’s helping ensure a longer, more steadfast relationship. Read more

Highlighting Flexibility & Diversity Initiatives: Ogletree Deakins

From time to time, we will be highlighting our member firms and corporations who we believe are leading the way in flexibility and diversity initiatives.  Recently, Alliance President & CEO Manar Morales spoke with Matt Keen, Managing Shareholder, and Michelle Wimes, Director of Professional Development and Inclusion, at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. about the work they have done with their firm’s flexibility policy and the creation of two Reduced Hours Advisor positions.  The following are excerpts from their discussion:

Ogletree DeakinsMorales: What was the impetus for creating a formal flex policy?

Keen: It was an evolution over time. As more women have taken shareholder, equity shareholder, and leadership positions, our awareness has been heightened. When Michelle was hired five years ago, we adopted a more formal flex policy so that all our attorneys would know what was available.

Wimes: While we’ve always informally tried to accommodate anyone who wanted to work flexibly, we wanted to make it more formal so that everyone in all offices knew about the option. We created the Reduced Hours Advisor positions to increase communication to all regions and to provide support to those working flexible schedules. Now we have two Reduced Hours Advisors – Kelly Hughes on the East Coast and Terry Egler on the West Coast – who have been through the process of working flexibly and can provide coaching and mentoring to others.   Both hold quarterly calls with their assigned regions and provide practical advice and positive reinforcement to others. Read more

Once You’ve Defined Your Success, It’s Time to Own Your Value

This is the second 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.

seven-strategies-for-flex-successYou’ve now clearly mapped out your plan for working flexibly and reaching your one, three, and five-year professional and personal goals. The second step in our Seven Strategies for Flex Success™ involves truly understanding what you bring to the table and then capitalizing on it. It’s all about self-reflection and self-esteem.

Over the years we’ve asked attorneys about their roads to flex success. “Even if you don’t feel confident, you have to exude confidence,” said one attorney. The best way to feel confident is by knowing your strengths and identifying what makes you unique. It’s important to find ways to incorporate these assets and skills into everything you do. This is the value-add that will make you a go-to resource for your internal and external clients, and it’s the lever to exercise greater choice, including flexibility in your schedule.

As one attorney working flex advised, “Differentiating yourself is critical if you’re hoping to take advantage of a flexible schedule. Once you earn the reputation as a hard worker who produces high quality work, people will want you on their team no matter what your schedule is.” Read more

The First Step to Ensuring Your Flex Success™ – Define Your Success

This is the first of 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.

seven-strategies-for-flex-successOnce you’ve decided that a flexible schedule is right for you, you need to be able to envision your future plans. As you define your successful, flexible career path you should clearly map out your one, three, and five-year vision. That vision should include what you want personally and professionally and how the two can mesh to define success on your own terms.

Once you are clear on your own goals you can begin to envision your long and short-term plans for your career, your lifestyle, and your family. You’ll also need to think through potential opportunities and obstacles and clearly map out financial and professional development needs. Do you want to be home with your children for an extended leave? Can you afford to work part-time? Do you want to take a sabbatical? Do you have childcare options? Your flexible work plan can then be mapped out to support your aspirations. You’ll be much better able to negotiate the needs of your firm once you have a clear sense of your personal needs.

Over the years we’ve asked countless professionals working flexible schedules about their initial planning stages. Here are some of their words of wisdom… Read more

Your Full-Time Flex Policy: Put it in Writing!

You may ask yourself, “Why would we need a formal full-time flex policy? Our attorneys are professionals and they know when they can come and go and when it’s appropriate to work from home.”

While this may be true in some cases, consider the challenges the firm faces when an attorney telecommutes 5 days a week, without his or her managing partner’s full support. Or what if an attorney is hesitant to work flexibly because he believes it will be held against him when his performance is reviewed? And how will your firm attract new law school graduates if you can’t legitimately state that you have a full-time flexible work policy and you can’t prove how many attorneys use it? Read more

Asking for Flex: It’s a Business Negotiation Not a Personal Favor

Note: This post was first published on May 21, 2016 on Mindful Return‘s blog. Mindful Return helps women transition back to work after maternity leave. We are grateful to Lori Mihalich-Levin for asking us to write a guest blog post!

If you are considering asking your company for a flexible work schedule, it’s important to approach it as you would any other business negotiation.  Your reasons for asking for flex might be personal, but you’re not asking for a personal favor.  You are asking for a modification to your schedule that would ultimately benefit everyone – you, the company, the clients, and future business relationships.  Just like preparing for an important meeting, case or new business pitch, providing the rationale for a flexible work schedule takes research, strategic planning, and negotiation.
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Is Your Flex Policy Equal Opportunity?

We talk frequently in this blog about the myriad benefits of having a flexible work policy. It can be a win-win situation when attorneys gain some work-life control, clients maintain team consistency, and firms reduce attrition and thereby retain top talent and reduce recruitment and training costs. Law firm recruiters have traditionally tried to entice female law school grads with promises of flex schedules and family-life balance. It has been an assumption that women want flexible work schedules mostly so they can maintain their career while also having and raising children.
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The Business Case for Flexibility: Are You Really Giving Your Clients What They Want?

Consider these questions…Are your clients consistently happy with the attorneys working for them? Have your clients complained about turnover in the firm? Have they taken their business with a departing partner? Have they refused to pay to get a new lawyer up to speed? Read more