The Highlights of our 2020 Legal Industry Covid-19 Survey

In this article, we discuss our recent 2020 Legal Industry Covid-19 Survey, including how staff have been impacted in their working and personal lives. We predict what a return to the workforce will look like when things return to a new-covid-normal.

There is no doubt that 2020 has been an unusual year. Business planning, business as usual and industry KPI’s were turned on their heads when the global pandemic made its way to Australia’s shores. Melbourne’s CBD in particular played their part in welcoming returning travelers to hotel quarantine and emptied out the office towers to send everyone who could, to work from home.

In June 2020, Legal People reached out to our legal industry colleagues to talk to them about how Covid-19 has impacted their working lives.

We knew when we asked the question that people had been impacted differently – some areas of practice were busier than ever, and others had been asked to purchase extra leave or even to take a pay cut. The insights from our survey were interesting, particularly as they related to a possible return to a new- normal in the future.

Our survey had more than 270 respondents many working across different areas of law such as Commercial Litigation (12.36%), Corporate and Commercial (28.18%), Family Law (13.45%), Employment and Workplace Relations (8.36%), Insurance (7.64%), Personal Injury Plaintiff (10.55), Property 16%) Banking and Finance (4.73%) and Construction (3.64%)

The bulk of the respondents were in Victoria and they answered our questions about hours worked, salary implications, lifestyle issues and how they wanted to work in the future.

Work Load

We asked respondents how their work flow had changed since Covid-19 and were told that 32% were busier than ever with an increase in work flow. 35% of respondents found that their volume of work was more or less the same than it had been pre Covid-19. 33% had faced a decrease in work load.

Hours Worked

As a result of these changes, 17% said they were working longer hours and 55% said there has been no change to their working hours. 18% had reduced their days working. 2% had been asked to take annual or long service leave and only 1.82% (5 respondents) had been made redundant. 4.73% (13 respondents) had been stood down.

The Impact on Pay

32.18% of respondents had taken a reduction in pay.

67% of respondents had no change to their pay.

Working from Home

When the Premier, Daniel Andrews told Victoria that “If you can work from home, you must work from home” the State and the Legal Industry took him seriously. At the time surveyed, 64% of respondents were working all days from home. 22% were working a mix of days from home and days in the office. Only 13% were working in the office.

The Impact on Productivity

For those who were working from home, we asked were they being more or less productive. 40% felt they were more productive. 35% felt they were about the same as if they worked in the office. 24% felt less productive.

We also asked about their habits when working from home to see whether lifestyles had improved or deteriorated. The responses to this question were truly a mixed bag, and we suspect this might relate to whether the respondents were also dealing with the challenges of “remote learning” with school aged children being home as well.

How Businesses Have Handled Covid-19

We asked how satisfied they were with the way their employer had handled Covid-19 and 53% told us their employer had done an awesome job. 21% said they had done an okay job. 13% were ambivalent and 12% said they were unsatisfied with the way their organisation had handled Covid-19.

Businesses that have managed to handle the health and safety of their people well during Covid-19, have continued to communicate and ensure company culture continues to thrive seem to have earned loyalty from their people who are feeling looked after and safe.

Of those that were unsatisfied with the way their employer had handled the crisis, 56 people or 22% said they would consider looking for a new position.

We asked our respondents whether they were concerned about their future job security. 64% suggested they were feeling secure whilst 35% suggested that they were not. This is perhaps an indication that staff remain unsure about what is coming at them for the remainder of 2020, with no real set return to work dates and a step backwards to tighter government restrictions in Victoria in July.

Covid-19 presented a massive challenge to law firms in relation to technology, innovation and shifting from paper processes to work from home. Companies also had to keep a close eye on their culture to keep employees in touch, engaged and feeling part of the company mission.

When we asked how their law firm culture had evolved (if it had) during the crisis, 29% said that the culture had actually improved. 48% said there had been no change and 21% said that the company culture had worsened. We were pleased to see that 37% thought that communication with their colleagues had improved during this time.

The Future of Work

When we asked about return to work plans, 44% said that their employer had not yet communicated a return to work plan. How they would return was a combination of working from home, combining office hours with working from home, with only 12% saying they were planning on returning to the office on a full time basis.

We were very interested to see, that when it came to returning to the office that 45% were planning on driving to work (oh dear…. we see a long commute coming). 38% seemed happy to return to public transport.

We have predicted in previous articles that one of the long term implications of the pandemic would be a change to people’s working patterns. A massive 44% of respondents suggested they wanted to continue to work from home 1-2 days a week. 29% wanted to work from home 2-3 days a week. 8% wanted to work from home 3-4 days a week and 8% wanted to work from home full time. Only 27 respondents or 9% wanted to return to the office for water cooler chat, paper files at their fingertips and none of the distractions of home!

In summary, our survey reinforced our understanding of how our industry was responding to the crisis. We saw a strong correlation between the reduction in workload of 33% with a 27% reduction in hours and 32% reduction in pay.

Most of the respondents felt their productivity when working from home was either as good or an improvement on their office productivity.

And, when it comes to heading back to the office…. We expect to see a continued demand for flexibility and the ability to work from home. Employers wishing to attract talent to their organisations in the future take note!

Are you looking for talented legal industry staff in Victoria? Legal People is your gateway to the best legal talent. We are specialists in the legal industry. We recruit lawyers, support staff and HR professionals in Melbourne, Australia. If you enjoyed reading this article you can follow our company page on LinkedIn for regular updates