In 2015, Legal Week Intelligence consulted with multiple HR directors at leading UK and global firms to create the new Best Employers Report. The findings, collected in partnership with US employee research specialist Best Companies Group, reveal some interesting findings that law firms should pay attention to.Key findings from last year’s report include:
- Most lawyers are worried about their career prospects and development, rated as highly important (94%) with a noticeably lower satisfaction score of (67%).
- Law firms are feeling less like a meritocracy, with 94% saying promotion/progression opportunities are important, but 61% saying they are satisfied.
- Communication, especially about career development, needs to improve, with a similar gap between importance (92%) and satisfaction (64%).
- The scales of work/life balance are still unbalanced, with a gulf remaining between importance (93%) and satisfaction (63%) for work/life integration.
- Teams are cohesive, with staff rating co-operation and teamwork importance and satisfaction highly: 98% importance and 83% satisfaction.
- Client and work quality continue to satisfy staff at all levels, obtaining the highest importance and satisfaction scores in the survey.
- Employees are more satisfied with firm diversity than they require, including gender, ethnic, socio-economic and sexual orientation diversity.
- Pay is always contentious, especially when it is discretionary. As with every year of this research, bonuses achieve some of the lowest satisfaction (33%) of any category in the survey, compared to an importance rating of 59%.
For details on how your firm can take part in this year’s survey contact Lara Rosenthal at [email protected] or call +44 207 316 9864
