How To Combat High Employee Turnover Rates In Your Law Firm

Whenever an employee leaves your firm, you are facing a loss in more ways than one. First, it represents a loss of institutional knowledge, especially if you’re losing a more senior team member. Furthermore, the remaining staff must then take on their work while you seek a replacement, resulting in a marked decrease in productivity. Finally, you’re also looking at a financial loss, especially when you consider that “the average turnover cost per employee is equivalent to 6-9 months of an employee’s salary.” 

As such, you must be able to combat high turnover rates within your form so that you can remain on track to success.

Host exit interviews. One of the easiest ways in which you can begin to combat high turnover rates within your law firm is by conducting detailed exit interviews with departing staff members. By getting to the bottom of their decision to leave, you can figure out what you need to be doing better moving forward. 

Ensure you’re offering a competitive salary. Over a third of employees leave a job because they’ve been offered better pay or benefits elsewhere. As such, you need to make sure that your team is fairly compensated for the work they produce, even if this means adjusting your budgets elsewhere. Ideally, you should review your employees’ salaries on an annual basis and offer bonuses when key targets are met.

Provide them with plenty of career progression opportunities. A lack of progression is another reason why employees tend to leave one firm for another. This means that you need to provide your team with ample growth opportunities within your firm, whether that be through on-site or external training. You should also work with each individual employee to map out their progression within your firm, ensuring you’re able to support both their long and short-term goals. This way, they have a clear pathway to follow.

Ensure your firm is a nice place to work. While this may seem a little obvious, curating a positive working environment on behalf of your team is one of the easiest ways to rectify poor retention rates. This is because the office will become a place they actually want to spend time in, and they’re much more likely to enjoy their work as a result of this. Fortunately, there are many ways in which you can achieve this goal. For example, you should ensure that high-performing employees are recognized and celebrated, such as through an employee of the month scheme. You should also work to foster a collaborative environment where colleagues are encouraged to work together, not against each other. 

Stop assigning work outside of their job description. If your firm is on the smaller side, you may be tempted to ask employees to carry out tasks that fall outside of their skill set, such as those related to accounting. However, this will not prove to be beneficial in the long run, especially as it increases frustration and puts your staff on the path to burnout. As such, you should be sure to outsource these tasks where appropriate.

At FinOp Group, we have years of experience in law firm accounting, whether you need help with payroll management or tax planning. Get in touch today to find out more.