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