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As a ploy to retain and attract new staff, law firms are offering a mind-boggling array of benefits, and not just the usual perks such as childcare and pensions – for your boss might even arrange your wedding, reports Chris Baker
MPs may not be able to benefit from free airport parking passes for much longer, but if you work for a law firm your bosses may be able to arrange your wedding for you. Even small practices offer some perks for their employees as a way to keep their staff happy and productive.
Staff benefits at the larger firms offer a range of similar services. Prayer-rooms tend to be de rigueur, while gyms, shower rooms and interest-free travel allowances are similarly typical.
Some firms even allow employees to buy and sell a set amount of their holiday allowance.
Health plans, aerobics, life insurance and pension schemes can be common, as are childcare schemes. It all helps with recruitment and retention, and some firms go that extra mile to provide perks for their staff.
City firm Clifford Chance has an in-house nutritionist, and a beauty therapist as part of its perk package but employees do have to pay for their services. Nannies can be provided for emergency childcare within two hours. As with other companies, not just law firms, it has an ‘introduction allowance’ to reward people who bring their acquaintances to work for the firm.
It also offers ‘X-exec’ – a Web-based lifestyle management system designed to make life easier for people. It helps employees to find and buy theatre tickets, tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians, holidays, events and gifts, and also provides a dry-cleaning service direct from the office. A confidential care telephone helpline and counselling service for employees and their families is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The firm has also worked out a series of discount arrangements with local businesses, including a free wine allowance and a deal on gym membership either at home or in the City that has been taken up by nearly half of its staff. Local companies approach the firm with ideas, as do employees.
‘We expect quite a lot from our staff but we also want to give out the message that we do look after them,’ says a Clifford Chance spokeswoman. ‘People want to know what else is on offer other than the basic salary.’
Clifford Chance has looked into providing a concierge scheme. DLA provides one, and its national development manager Amber Moore found it most useful. Two years ago, Ms Moore was getting married. She wanted children to come to the ceremony, but she also wanted to make sure they enjoyed themselves, so she approached the firm’s LifeWorks concierge service.
‘I gave them the details of what I wanted to achieve,’ Ms Moore says. ‘They then gave me the information about what was available. They discovered a mobile crèche, gave me the details, made recommendations, and told me all they knew about it.’
The crèche, complete with bouncy castle and clown, proved an instant success. ‘I didn’t know such things existed,’ she says. ‘The children loved it and didn’t want to come out for the photographs.’
Since its success as a wedding planner, the concierge service has helped arrange a nursery for Ms Moore’s daughter, and helped her find a builder for renovation work to her house. ‘It saves you having to plough through the Yellow Pages and things that take up a huge amount of time,’ Ms Moore says. ‘Most of the time it’s things you would have to do in the working day – they take all that hassle away from you.’
The LifeWorks staff assistance team provides expert support and information on a variety of issues, ranging from childcare and care for the elderly, to budgeting and managing stress.
The service is accessible through a free telephone number, with counsellors available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Handbooks and fact sheets are available on-line for all employees. And the human resources managers in each office distribute regular updates on enhancements to the service.
DLA also offers wedding gifts, various pensions, insurance and health schemes, and rewards for long-serving staff. ‘We decided that to promote teamwork and a true sense of mutual respect, we would implement one benefit package for all our people,’ says a spokeswoman. ‘This served to further emphasise our values around our people to bring the best out of our people by encouraging mutual respect, responsibility and teamwork.’
The benefits seem to have worked. Over the past five years, the number of people offered a job at the firm who have taken it up has increased to 81%, and staff turnover has dropped from 32% to 17%.
It is a similar story at City firm Herbert Smith. It offers 27 days of holiday, profit sharing, and a bonus for fee-earning hours targets. As with most firms, it offers assurance, insurance, contributory pensions, maternity and paternity leave. Discretionary sick pay, interest-free season ticket loans, subsidised gym membership, and staff discounts are also available.
But what is the position at firms that are not in the magic circle or the City? Even high street and legal aid practices, not known for being able to afford extravagance, try to offer some perks to keep their teams happy. But when these are tiny it is not so easy.
‘We’ve discussed group membership of leisure clubs but people are not sure they all wanted to do the same things,’ says Rodney Warren, founding partner of Eastbourne-based criminal law firm Rodney Warren & Co. ‘If you’ve got a firm of ten to 20 people and half want to do it you have to work out what to do with the other half to compensate.’
Mr Warren’s solution is to throw parties for his team. Barbecues chez Warren take place regularly, and he likes to get a round in come Friday evening. ‘We try to do simple little things like on Friday night we try and all go to the pub and the firm buys the drinks,’ he says. ‘Some people can only make it for one, but it’s a nice way to finish the week and it gives us an opportunity to have a laugh about some of the things that have happened during the week.’
The firm’s parties have proved so popular that its head of litigation, Christos Christou suggested extending the invitation. ‘We recently had a party to celebrate our tenth anniversary and it grew so that anyone could come along to it,’ Mr Warren recalls. ‘So now he’s gone off and organised parties for lawyers in the area. The firms in Eastbourne aren’t big enough to do these things themselves so it brings them together – he organises it and people turn up if they want to.’
Mr Warren stresses that the parties are not just for the solicitors. ‘Anyone who works in a law firm can turn up,’ he explains. ‘It’s been very successful and it builds up good relationships.’
There are many ways for law firms to offer an extra little something to keep staff happy and healthy. And it appears to be good business, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff.
As Ms Moore says of the perks offered by DLA: ‘It’s a great firm to work for anyway, but when you have things like [the concierge service] offered in addition it’s a really good benefit and certainly one I’ve found very useful. I used it for my wedding two years ago and I’m still using it now.’
Whether firms are big or small, perks can offer staff that something extra that makes work worthwhile.
Chris Baker is a freelance journalist
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