Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / The Critical Question to Ask Your Team to Reduce Turnover

Transcript

The Critical Question to Ask Your Team to Reduce Turnover · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:03
  Davina Frederick: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the wealthy
• 0:05
  woman lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Davina Frederick. And
• 0:08
  today I want to share with you the one critical question, you
• 0:12
  must ask your team if you want to reduce turnover in your law
• 0:17
  for business. But before I get to the question, I think we need
• 0:21
  to discuss what it means to reduce turnover, and why it's
• 0:25
  important. Reducing turnover simply means that when we hire
• 0:28
  good employees, we want to keep them for as long as we can and
• 0:33
  not have them quit or need to fire them. And that's important,
• 0:39
  obviously, for the people aspect, of course, the caring
• 0:43
  about other people. But it's also important because it costs
• 0:48
  an estimated one and a half to two times a person's salary,
• 0:53
  each time an employee leaves, that's when you take into
• 0:57
  account all the training and the institutional knowledge that
• 0:59
  they're taking with them, and the cost of hiring and
• 1:02
  retraining a new employee in their pay in their place. So
• 1:06
  that's one and a half to two times a person salary. That's
• 1:10
  the cost every time we have turnover. So obviously, this is
• 1:13
  something as business owners that we're going to want to
• 1:16
  avoid as much as we can. Now that's not always, you know, if
• 1:20
  you have a business for 2030 years, people are going to come
• 1:24
  and go, that is a part of doing business. So don't get too hung
• 1:28
  up on that. But this is just something that we're going to
• 1:33
  talk about how to reduce it. So also employees who are satisfied
• 1:38
  with their jobs are not only more likely to stay for a longer
• 1:43
  amount of time, but also they're going to help foster a work
• 1:47
  environment that influences other syste. So you have made
• 1:51
  you may have heard the term happy wife happy life. Well, I'm
• 1:55
  going to start a nutrient happy team builds the dream, happy
• 1:59
  team builds the dream. But we need to keep that in mind. If
• 2:02
  you want a happy team, it's important to ask one critical
• 2:07
  question of each team member is question I think I read this
• 2:11
  question in the Harvard Law Review, Harvard Business Review.
• 2:16
  And but regardless of where I heard it, it's a great question.
• 2:20
  I made a note of it and I want to share with you it is what
• 2:23
  parts of your job do you love? And what parts of your job do
• 2:27
  you hate? So let me repeat that what parts of your job do you
• 2:31
  love? And what parts do you hate? Now, I know you may be
• 2:35
  thinking if you're a business owner, oh, my God, I don't want
• 2:38
  to ask my employees that. But it's an important question. And
• 2:41
  it's a it's a question that, as business owners, we need to ask
• 2:45
  ourselves as well, because that's going to help us help let
• 2:48
  us know what we need to delegate. And what you know, we
• 2:51
  should be doing what the highest best use of our time is. But we
• 2:54
  want to really extend that to our team as well. It's important
• 2:59
  to ask this question directly, and be open to receiving honest
• 3:04
  answers. It's also important to reassure your employees that you
• 3:08
  really want to know. And this is not about hiring or firing, it
• 3:14
  is about trying to improve their job satisfaction in places that
• 3:18
  you can't. The most important part is that is really what you
• 3:23
  do with the information once you have it, though, because to ask
• 3:27
  the question, and then never attempt to make adjustments to
• 3:31
  their jobs based on what you learn, is likely to cause a lot
• 3:35
  of heart fit hard feelings. And it's going to cause long term
• 3:38
  damage to your team and in your company culture. So you don't
• 3:44
  ask this question if you aren't prepared for what you might
• 3:47
  hear. And you aren't prepared to work with that person to make
• 3:53
  changes to eliminate things that they hate, or find some way to
• 3:57
  make it better. When a person tells you that they hate
• 4:00
  something about their job, and you do nothing, you can be rest
• 4:03
  assured knowing that they likely will start job hunting very
• 4:07
  soon. So for those who hate the main focus of their job, then
• 4:14
  it's good that you know that information. Because we don't
• 4:18
  want people in a very important job, knowing that they really
• 4:22
  hate doing that work. But for those who hate some minor part
• 4:26
  of their job, and they love the most important parts of their
• 4:29
  jobs, it may be possible to shift or even eliminate
• 4:33
  altogether some of those activities that they don't like
• 4:36
  doing. So if you want to cultivate a loyal, satisfied
• 4:40
  team, it's certainly worth giving it a try. So let me give
• 4:44
  you a couple of examples. This might help you sort of picture
• 4:47
  this visualize it in your own business. Let's say that you
• 4:50
  have a paralegal and her name is we'll call her Chantal.
• 4:54
  And she loves drafting documents and she's good at it. But you
• 4:59
  discover after You asked this question, you probably already
• 5:01
  have a little bit of a hint of this anyway. But you discover,
• 5:05
  after asking this question that she hates being interrupted with
• 5:08
  client calls all day, because she feels like she can't
• 5:12
  concentrate on her drafting task. And when she's constantly
• 5:16
  being interrupted by client calls, then she is afraid she's
• 5:21
  gonna make mistakes. And you may already sort of know this,
• 5:27
  because you may hear on the phone, and maybe she's not
• 5:29
  always the warmest and friendly as to your clients, because
• 5:32
  she's irritated with being interrupted. So, first of all,
• 5:37
  do you think it's important to know this information? And I
• 5:40
  think the answer is hell yes. Right. We really want to know,
• 5:44
  if somebody doesn't want to be talking to our clients, and they
• 5:50
  resent doing it like low key resent it. And maybe they're not
• 5:54
  saying that are articulating it. But we can certainly tell when
• 5:57
  somebody doesn't like doing it. They are Curt, they're abrupt.
• 6:01
  They don't put a smile on their face when they're talking to
• 6:03
  clients. And it can be heard in their voice. So if you find that
• 6:08
  out, that's important information that will help you
• 6:12
  make a decision. Now what you do with that information is up to
• 6:15
  you. You might decide that Chantelle is complaint is valid
• 6:19
  and reasonable. Because you know what it's like when you're
• 6:23
  constantly, you know, being interrupted while you're trying
• 6:26
  to concentrate. And she's a valued member of your team. She
• 6:31
  does a great job drafting. So it might be worth it for you to
• 6:35
  start redirecting calls that would normally go to her to
• 6:39
  another employee, one who loves helping clients and doesn't mind
• 6:43
  talking on the phone. So if you have somebody on your team that
• 6:47
  could answer questions, and they're not worried about
• 6:50
  interruptions. They love talking to people and helping then you
• 6:54
  might start directing those calls to that person, and let
• 6:57
  that person then help try to solve that the client's problem.
• 7:02
  And maybe if they need to meet with Chantal at a certain time
• 7:05
  of the day to get answers and then call people back. So
• 7:07
  there's there's ways around it right. Now let's assume that
• 7:11
  Chantal tells you that she loves to help people, but she hates
• 7:15
  sitting behind a computer all day drafting documents. Since
• 7:18
  the key component of a paralegals job is drafting
• 7:22
  documents, it's unlikely you'll be able to redirect document
• 7:26
  drafting to someone else. That is a paralegals main function of
• 7:30
  their job. And that's what you're paying Chantelle to do.
• 7:34
  However, you might realize that Chantelle based on her
• 7:37
  personality may so based on her Clifton Strengths analysis, or
• 7:41
  some other Enneagram, or Myers Briggs, or whatever it is that
• 7:45
  you use DISC assessment, that she might be better suited as
• 7:50
  your client care specialist. Don't be afraid to move her to
• 7:54
  another position. If she's been with you for years, she has a
• 7:58
  lot of institutional knowledge you'd like her, and he thinks
• 8:01
  she is a good fit in your company culture. But maybe not
• 8:06
  in that drafting job. Maybe she thought she wanted to be a
• 8:08
  paralegal, but she's not that great at it. And she loves
• 8:11
  helping people see by switch her to a client care specialist, and
• 8:15
  then outsource the drafting or hire a new paralegal. Both of
• 8:20
  these decisions I've shared allow you to keep Chantal and
• 8:24
  ensure she stays satisfied with her job duties, which means
• 8:27
  she's more likely to stay with your firm longer, so less
• 8:31
  turnover and the cost of training somebody else. Of
• 8:34
  course, there's always the possibility that you'll discover
• 8:36
  someone hates the main function of their job. And there's really
• 8:40
  no recourse or course of action to change it. Because that's the
• 8:44
  job that you need done. The sooner you know someone is
• 8:48
  dissatisfied, the sooner you can course correct. So maybe you'll
• 8:54
  protect the firm, the best interests of the firm, which you
• 8:57
  know, is our job is to protect the best interest of the firm
• 9:00
  from losing an employee before you're prepared to replace them.
• 9:04
  So if you think, boy, she hates her job,
• 9:07
  I better start looking for somebody because I suspect she's
• 9:12
  going to start looking for a new job here soon and leave it's
• 9:14
  high and dry. Or maybe you'll protect the firm by terminating
• 9:18
  an employee who's dissatisfaction is spilling out
• 9:21
  all over the place, and getting on other employees and on
• 9:25
  clients. So if you get you know, if you understand that this is
• 9:30
  not something that they're, they're well suited for, then
• 9:34
  you're doing everyone a favor, including that employee, if you
• 9:37
  just call it a day and say, you know, I'm gonna let you go on so
• 9:40
  you can pursue something that really lights you up. Regardless
• 9:44
  of the outcome, knowledge is power. The more questions we ask
• 9:48
  our employees, and the more we open, open we are to receiving
• 9:52
  their answers, the better decisions we can make as
• 9:55
  managers and leaders. Remember what I said Happy team builds
• 9:59
  that ramie must have a team if you want to build that wealth
• 10:02
  generating law firm business, even if you have independent
• 10:07
  contractors versus employees, especially when you're starting
• 10:09
  out, really having other people to help you is grow your
• 10:14
  business is what is needed if you want to be that wealth,
• 10:17
  generating million dollar plus revenue Janene generating
• 10:20
  business is profitable, sustainable for a long period of
• 10:23
  time, and also allows you to step away from the day to day
• 10:26
  operations of your business. So that's it for today's episode. I
• 10:30
  do hope you enjoyed it. If you are struggling to hire and
• 10:34
  manage a high performing team, I want to invite you to join me
• 10:38
  during wealthy woman lawyer, lawyers live virtual five day
• 10:45
  law firm hiring challenge. This is something new that I'm doing
• 10:49
  where I'm actually hosting a five day challenge from November
• 10:55
  7 through November 11, November 7 through November 11. So that's
• 10:59
  in a little over a week from now, from one to two eastern
• 11:04
  time each day. So Monday through Friday, November 7 through is
• 11:10
  Monday, November 11. is Friday, veterans day, every day of that
• 11:15
  week, from one to 2pm. Eastern, I'm going to go live. And and
• 11:20
  I'm going to teach you we're going to take a deeper dive into
• 11:26
  my five step, law firm hiring blueprint, I have a blueprint to
• 11:32
  help you create a good hiring system. So that we make hiring
• 11:38
  as easy as we can for you during this time, when it's
• 11:42
  particularly challenging to a lot of small, firm owners. So
• 11:45
  just five days, you will have started and started creating
• 11:50
  this the same hiring system that I teach my private coaching
• 11:55
  clients. These are women, law firm owners who make anywhere
• 11:59
  from a half million to a million and to several million. And this
• 12:05
  is the same hiring system that I teach them. So for more details
• 12:09
  and to register, I want you to click the link in the show
• 12:12
  notes. And I hope to see you then in there. Thank you again
• 12:16
  for being a part of the wealthy woman lawyer community and a
• 12:19
  listener of the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. If you listen to
• 12:23
  this on Apple, please leave us a review. Every great review we
• 12:28
  get helps to Apple to rank that higher and get more eyeballs and
• 12:34
  ears onto our podcasts. So thanks so much. I appreciate
• 12:38
  Unknown: it.