Sticking together

Motivation drives us to achieve our goals and enables law firm owners and managers to achieve commercial objectives through their workforce. It is necessary for growth and development and it is a key skill to possess for everyone who wants to manage and lead. And in a time of difficulty for law firms it is an even more valuable ability.

As mentioned in my last column, the reason for examining ‘the theory’ is not for academic interest alone but to get out of the management error loop and move ahead. It is a practical issue of great immediacy for private client departments, other departments and law firms generally.

Dual approach

We investigated Maslow (the hierarchy of needs) and McGregor (theory X and theory Y) previously. Now it is the turn of Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman (two-factor theory).

According to Herzberg an employee’s productivity is derived from two distinct factors:?

1. Motivation factors. These make employees more satisfied and more productive.

2. Hygiene factors. These make employees dissatisfied and less productive. ?

For the purpose of clarification ‘hygiene factors’ might also be termed ‘maintenance factors’. Importantly they are not opposites to the motivation factors but quite distinct from them.

If hygiene factors, such as the work environment, improve, that will remove barriers to job satisfaction – evidenced by positive attitudes. But these factors do not meet human desires, such as the need for recognition, which actually spur action. In other words, you can put your lawyers in a nice new office with all the mod cons, even air conditioning that works properly, and soap dispensers with nice smelling soap, and they will still get mad with you and leave.

Motivation factors improve job satisfaction or job enrichment. So, according to this theory and putting it into our particular context, good law firm management (that is you) should focus upon job enrichment (or people enrichment) as their priority. (I was going to say we should focus on lawyer enrichment but that sounds a little too close to banker enrichment which is now socially unacceptable.)

Why should we focus on job enrichment? Good law firm management understands that motivation comes from within the employee and is not something we can control directly, but it is something we can influence. And we need to do so perhaps especially now as the traditional opportunity for ‘advancement’, i.e. becoming a partner/co-owner in a law firm, appears to be diminishing. So we need ways to obtain and retain the best people as perma-employees.

According to this theory, the motivation factors that will improve a lawyer’s job satisfaction and increase productivity include:?

1. a sense of achievement;

2. recognition;

3. the work itself;

4. responsibility;

5. advancement; and

6. personal growth potential. ?

A sense of achievement is derived from a number of things, such as successful problem solving, successful completion of a job, being able to see ‘a real result’, or having a sense of having made a solid contribution. A sense of achievement was by far the most important source of satisfaction, according to Herzberg’s research.

Corner stone

There is a key message in this for law firms. In particular, having a sense of ‘ownership’ of a client matter is crucial. Without it, it is much harder to problem solve and ‘complete’ a job, let alone approximate the sense of achieving a result, a mini-Eureka experience often culminating in the delivery of a most satisfying fee note.

Recognition involves being praised for your achievements, being ‘noticed’ even without being praised as such, and being ‘credited’ with something as an individual or as part of a group.

Lawyers are notorious for claiming the credit for the efforts of their junior staff. Recognition means that must stop, because surely you want to keep those capable of such efforts and build the team? In many ways, they will determine the manner in which you will retire – the small island or the tiny basement flat with a sun-starved window box.

The work itself involves getting to do some or the entire job, which in itself is a motivating factor. If the legal/related work is challenging and demanding in terms of what the employee perceives they are able ?to achieve before doing it, then it is most likely to possess meaning.

The same applies to work that requires some sort of commitment and/or creativity. Depending on the particular context, meaning may be derived by employees from providing them with appropriate answers to questions such as: ‘What do you want me to do?’; ‘How should I do it?’; and ‘Why am I doing it?’ The emphasis required to provide an appropriate answer will depend upon their existing skill sets and levels of experience.

Responsibility involves being given real delegated responsibility when you are ready for it, i.e. being given some challenging will/trust drafting work that you have been trained to do, plus the authority to carry it out. This means having significant control over the work you are given to do. Essentially it means ‘being trusted’ and usually the words ‘with the client relationship’ should be added.

Personal growth

Advancement/growth involves the opportunity for change, which improves position or status. Personal growth potential was also noted by Herzberg and is perhaps strictly part of advancement. However, it is sometimes stated separately in the literature. Personal growth potential is change which increases the ability to advance our skills, for example, through increased opportunities to do something, through training or mentoring, or simply access to adequate project funding or intellectual and other information-based resources.

It also includes things such as job enlargement (responsibility increasing with skill and experience), job rotation (variety which enhances skills and experience) and job enrichment (anything which expands a lawyer’s interest and knowledge). This might all be summed up as feeling you are truly developing your abilities and experience as a lawyer (and maybe also a person).

This last factor, which was not highly rated as a motivation factor in Herzberg’s research, is arguably growing in importance. There is anecdotal evidence that more young lawyers in particular are seeking higher levels of self-actualisation that they do not confuse with the pursuit of money and/or status.
In any event, advancement/personal growth equals progress and a sense of that progress usually motivates. If we meet these factors as employers then, according to the two-factor theory, job satisfaction will be enhanced and our firm’s productivity will rise.

David Coldrick is a consultant at Wrigleys Solicitors