With organizations’ workforces spread across various locations – homes, offices, and remote settings – strengthening relationships between employers and employees has become an even greater priority.
Now that most mask mandates and mandatory quarantines have been lifted, law firms are increasingly being faced with decisions regarding employee flexibility. Those that adapt and change to thrive in the new environment will likely reap the benefits of engaged flexible employees, while those that go back to the old ways might be left with a less productive and engaged workforce.
Employee engagement has long been challenging for many organizations, including legal ones. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, law firms were forced to quickly adopt new workplace norms. With organizations’ workforces spread across various locations – homes, offices, and remote settings – strengthening relationships between employers and employees has become an even greater priority.
What is Employee Engagement?
According to Quantum Workplace, employee engagement is “the strength of the mental and emotional connection employees feel toward the work they do, their teams, and their organization.” However, there are several different levels of employee engagement. These include:
- Highly engaged employees – those who feel connected to their teams, have extremely favorable opinions of their organizations, are always willing to go the extra mile, and frequently encourage colleagues to do their best.
- Moderately engaged employees – those who view their workplace in a favorable light but also see ways it can be improved. These workers are typically less likely to ask for more responsibilities than highly engaged employees and at risk for underperformance.
- Barely engaged employees – those who have an indifferent opinion about their workplace, lack the motivation to improve, will do only what they need to get by, and may even be looking for other jobs while at work.
- Disengaged employees – those who have a negative opinion of their workplace, feel disconnected from its mission, and lack commitment to their position within the organization. Just as highly engaged employees positively impact those around them, disengaged employees can have a negative effect on colleagues.
In the past several years, more and more employees have experienced greater flexibility and consider the ability to work from anywhere to be instrumental in how engaged they feel regarding their workplace. According to a recent Quantum Workplace report, 78 percent of remote employees surveyed described themselves as “highly engaged” with their workplace, and 88 percent said working remotely gives them the flexibility they need to balance work and their personal life.
What Remote Legal Employees Need to Stay Engaged
While numerous things can help increase employee engagement – strong leadership, challenging responsibilities, advancement opportunities – cloud-based law practice management software is vital to help legal employees stay engaged and productive when working from anywhere. Here are some critical things to look for in a legal matter management system:
The Ability to Automate Documents
Document automation software for law firms provides users with a uniform process for automatically producing correspondence, agreements, motions, pleadings, briefs, invoices, and more. Legal document automation is essential to improve and optimize how attorneys practice law because it helps ensure that documents are accessible, organized, and secured to allow future access, revisions, and sharing.
A Centralized Place to Work
Legal matter management software provides legal teams with a centralized place to work through platformization. As it applies to content management, platformization refers to a single core technology platform serving as the backbone of the management system, with built-in tools for end users’ major day-to-day workflows. While apps and integrations can extend the platform’s capabilities, relying on one central platform as a foundation creates a seamless user experience and ensures that legal teams can find and do what they need at any moment.
Task and Workflow Management Capacity
Cloud-based practice management systems provide task management to save time, encourage accountability, and reduce errors. Some platforms allow users to create task templates for pre-defined workflows, recurring tasks, and integrated tools that convert incoming emails into tasks. These task management solutions enable teams to tag, sort, filter, create subtasks, and keep everyone on the same page.
Secure Ways to Exchange Information
All legal professionals, including those who work remotely, have the responsibility to take measures to ensure that privileged and confidential information does not wind up in the wrong hands. Legal practice management platforms frequently include encrypted client portals that facilitate the secure sharing of files and other information and allow clients to upload documents for the firm to review.
Boost Productivity and Employee Engagement with Cloud-Based Law Firm Software
Employee engagement improves when managers or supervising partners take a genuine interest in their team members by:
- Helping them grow their skills
- Expressing how their work positively affects the firm and the clients
- Providing employees with the tools to get their jobs done collaboratively and efficiently, whether they work from home, in the office, or somewhere else.
To learn how CARET Legal’s legal case management software could increase efficiency and help your employees feel more engaged—wherever they choose to work — schedule your personal demo today.
