Use SNA to measure the role of support service functions within a professional services firm

I worked for many years for large City international law firms which were structured as traditional partnerships. These firms focused all their HR activities and training on lawyers who were seen as the ‘engine room’ and key to the success of the business. Fee-earning lawyers have a very transparent career path and are very well respected and remunerated for their efforts. However there is not such a transparent career path or level of respect for the non legal functions. For the sake of clarity I will refer in this blog to the non legal functions as ‘support services’. These functions cover Business Development (BD), Marketing, Communications, Knowledge Management, Information Services, Compliance, Training, Technology and Facilities Management.

In the law firms where I worked the support services departments had a much flatter structure and much less generous terms of remuneration notwithstanding their increasing importance. Where excellent legal services are a given (due to the high level of fees) it is in my view through excellent support services that law firms can differentiate themselves, maintain their ‘culture and feel’, and thereby attract the best talent.

Why SNA?
As ROI is much easier to quantify for lawyers with hours recorded and billable hourly target figures I believe that SNA would be a very helpful tool within the context of a law firm to identify the role of support services in the network of the partnership. In my experience many senior partners underestimate the role of the support services departments in ensuring the smooth and successful operation of their firm. A clearer understanding could ensure that law firms invest properly in their support services departments, and identify where the greatest investment is needed. Appropriate remuneration and recognition would enable law firms to retain the best people by appropriately compensating them for the contribution that they provide to the success of the business. If support services employees were better connected this could reduce churn (people staying 3 to 4 years and then moving on) which is both costly and time consuming. Moreover it could diminish the ‘them and us’ distinction that exists between lawyers and supports services and foster a more collaborative culture. Law firms are ‘people businesses’ and competitive advantage is achieved by (1) having the best people at all levels and in all departments; (2) knowledge accumulation and sharing; and (3) good communication throughout the firm.

What would be the benefits of SNA?
SNA could be used to ascertain:

-       -the support services departments that are best connected – and which practice areas they have the highest connections with – and why?

-        trainees and qualified lawyers that most utilize the support services departments. Lawyers could be grouped by level of experience.

-       those people within support services departments who have the highest connectivity, the highest in-betweeness, closeness and who are sources and sinks, and possible bottlenecks.  Then do an egonet of these people and properly ascertain where knowledge is stored.

-       the level of inbound and outbound connectivity for support services groups. The inbound score may be very low at junior levels with isolates.

-       connectivity between support services groups.  To ensure the smooth running of the firm it is important that those within support services groups share knowledge and are well connected at all levels. In my experience there may be sub-groups of connectivity at the highest levels, or even cliques amongst department heads, but few relationships at the lower level.

Attributes to be included
To try and understand the connectivity the following attributes should be added:

-       nationality

-       years of work experience

-       years with the firm

-       name of support department

-       location of office

-       age (within groups)

-       gender.

How is data gathered?

It should not be too difficult to conduct an SNA analysis within a law firm context. Many firms have Client Relationship Management Systems such as Interaction and department intranet sites that could be used to gather data. This could also be supplemented with an online survey every 3 to 6 months as part of the appraisal process, which could also cover social networks to see who connects outside work. I believe that in the main support services departments would be very supportive of the process if they appreciated the logic behind it as would the partnership provided Data Protection Act concerns could be satisfied regarding retrieval and storage of relevant data.

Recommendations

With this knowledge gained from SNA within support services departments:

-       training could be directed to where it is most needed – communication skills for isolates and management for emerging leaders

-       bottle necks could be removed

-       better remuneration and career development for ‘emerging leaders’

-       succession planning could be properly introduced to ensure a smooth transfer of knowledge

-       rotations could be introduced into practice areas from central functions

-       social events could be organized to encourage connectivity  

-       support services groups could be included in events to celebrate the completion of a deal if it is clear that they have made a significant contribution. Why not include the teams that were instrumental in winning the pitch? Or the knowledge management team that operated the online data room?

-       reward those that are eigenvectors or have improved their connectivity with bonus or extra holiday to motivate and incentivize.

Susan – 29/05/15