Has the great resignation found its way to your firm?
If you’ve suddenly found yourself short staffed, read on.
First of all, let me reassure you it’s not you— I’ve spoken with several women law firm owners who have recently experienced a mass exodus of their staff, leaving them in a real bind, and wondering what to do next. Law firms are not exempt from the current labor shortage.
So what should you do?
Today, on the Wealthy Woman Lawyer® podcast, I share some insight and seven do’s and don’ts:
- The first thing you need to do (get this one done ASAP)
- The “insider” secret places to find hidden talent — even in this economy
- How to keep the bumps in the road from derailing what you’re building and why this “setback” might be the setup for your million-dollar dream team
- And more…
Listen now…
If you are a woman law firm owner looking for support as you transform your law practice into a million-dollar wealth-generating law firm business, please join us in the Wealthy Woman Lawyer® League! In the League, I not only teach you the exact framework I’ve used to teach hundreds of women law firm owner clients how to grow their own million-dollar law firms, but my team and I provide you with weekly live support so you can get all your questions answered and begin creating your own fortune with total ease. Visit www.wealthywomanlawyer.com/league/ to enroll now.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Wealthy Woman Lawyer® League
- Wealthy Woman Lawyer® website
- Davina on Facebook
- Davina on Twitter
- Davina on Instagram
Transcript
Davina Frederick: Hello and welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. We believe all women lawyers deserve to be wealthy women lawyers. Our mission is to provide thought provoking, powerful and practical information to help you in creating your own sustainable wealth generating law firm without overwork or overwhelm so you can live your best life. I’m your host, Davina Frederick, let’s get started.
Hi, everyone, it’s Davina Frederick, of Wealthy Woman Lawyer. We help women law firm owners scale their law firm business to and through a million dollars in annual revenue with total ease. Recently, I’ve spoken with several women law firm owners who have experienced a mass exodus of their staff, leaving them in a real bind, panicked and wondering what to do next. It can be especially frustrating if you only have a few staffers to begin with and you’ve been hiring people all year long to get to this point, only to have them participate in the great resignation, because they think the grass is greener elsewhere.
See, the biggest mistake I’ve seen women law firm owners in this situation make is to take these resignations personally, feel betrayed and then as a result, fail to take swift action to hire a new employee. You are only hurting yourself and your business if you don’t keep moving forward and move forward quickly. Most likely your employee’s decision to leave is because they’re hearing that now is a great time to make a move and improve their opportunities. It may not be that they hated working with you. So much as maybe they felt like that internal drive to make a change. The pandemic has changed all of us and many people are seeking opportunities that seem to offer a better way of life. You’ve likely felt this yourself.
In many cases, the people who are leaving, were ones that you thought about letting go before, but you never took action to fire them. Because it seemed like too much of a hassle to maybe hire and train somebody else new. So I view this as the universe sort of forcing our hand on something we knew all along we should be doing for our personal and professional growth. But we kept avoiding it because it felt hard. Sometimes the only way we will allow ourselves to make hard decisions and take action on them is to create a situation where we have we have no choice. And that’s law of attraction in action. If you say you want growth, but you’re not taking action to get it because it feels hard, the universe is still going to give you growth. And sometimes that comes in the form of contrast, what we don’t want, which is designed to really give us clarity, what we do want.
So what do you do if you find yourself suddenly short staffed? Well, I made a list of seven do’s and don’ts to help you if you’re in this position. Number one is don’t panic and don’t take it personally. As I’ve said before, people’s choices about leaving are about them, they’re not most likely not about you. Number two is do get your ads out for newly available positions ASAP. Do not rest on your laurels here, go ahead and get those ads out ASAP, don’t delay. Number three is do use multiple avenues and networks to get the word out that you are hiring. Number four, do seek out temporary services to help you get through until you hire and get your new staff on boarded. You don’t want the clients to feel the pain of missing critical deadlines. So you really want to stay on top of this. And if it requires you to go out and seek some extra, temporary services, contract services to help you get the work done, you need to do that. Even if it seems to cost you a little bit in the short run.
Number five, do put a hold on new client consultations if it’s taking a while to find the right people. So if you’re getting still getting a lot of work coming in, but you don’t have enough team to help you do it because you’ve been scaling your business this whole time. So a lot of work is coming in. Work that needs to be done by a team of people, not one person, then you may want to put your consults on hold for a little while or have your receptionist or client care specialist schedule them out a few months or you may want to start charging for them if you’re not charging for them which is going to reduce some of those new client consults and particularly from time wasters.
Number six, don’t settle for a warm body just because you feel desperate. Okay, don’t take yes, we know if you only get three applications and none of them are good. Keep looking. Keep looking. Because if you don’t, if you hire some one who’s not good, you’re just really kicking the can down the road, you’re really knocking this problem down the road for you to deal with in another six months. So you don’t want to do that. Number seven is my final and number seven on my list is do remember, if you want to own a profitable, sustainable wealth generating law firm business, that’s going to serve you for years to come, there will be bumps on the road. You simply cannot be in business for 10, 20, 30 years, and not experience some up and downs. It is just the nature of business ownership. People are going to come and people are going to go, and there will be shifts in the economy and there will be changes in supply and demand. All kinds of things will happen over the life of your business.
The key is to make up your mind now that you are in it for the long haul. If you let every little setback emotionally derail you, you’re going to suffer needlessly. And your business is going to suck the life out of you over time. So really adopting the perspective of an adventurer. One who is curious about exciting opportunities, each challenge presents is the best approach. Try to keep your mind and your thoughts in check about what this is and don’t make it bigger than it actually is. So what if by those people leaving, for instance, your million dollar team is now free to show up and fill that void? What if they are now on their way to you? And they could not have been on their way to you if these people were still there.
So thank you for listening to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If so, please leave us a review. If you are a woman law firm owner looking for support as you transform your law practice into a million dollar wealth generating law firm business, please join us in the Wealthy Woman Lawyer League. In the League, I not only teach you the exact framework I’ve used to teach hundreds of women law firm owners how to grow their own million dollar law firms, but my team and I provide you with weekly live support so you can get all your questions answered and begin creating your own fortune with total ease. Visit www.wealthywomanlawyer.com/league to enroll now. We will have that in the show notes for you wealthywomanlawyer.com/league to enroll now. Thank you so much for listening, and I’ll see you in the League.
