James's blog: Clients Care?

I work in the legal profession and my employer recently agreed, after lengthy negotiations, to my working a four-day week to enable me to look after my daughter one day each week.  There were a number of issues which my employer had to grapple with before they could get sufficiently comfortable to agree to my flexible working request.  One obvious concern was the impact it might have on my colleagues and the potential additional strain it could place on resources in my team.  By far the greatest concern expressed, however, was the impact my arrangements would have on clients.  We work in a services industry, and the competition is such that, if a client is unhappy with the service being provided, there are plenty of other competitors willing to be more responsive, work harder, and charge less.  Anything which has the potential to undermine client relations is therefore to be avoided.

One of the first conversations I had with my employers after we had agreed to my arrangements focussed on what, if anything, my clients would be told.  Some of the suggestions made included just simply setting my ‘out-of-office’ on my day off without any kind of heads up to the client, or neither setting my ‘out of office’ nor giving any kind of explanation to my clients for any unresponsiveness on the day in question.  My intention, however, was always to be upfront with my clients and, accordingly, at the outset of a transaction I always explain to them what my arrangements are and what this will entail.

And, without exception, the response from clients has been refreshingly positive.  A lot of my contacts at clients also have young families, and so completely understand the pressures that fellow professionals face in trying to balance a job with family commitments, and seem committed to ensuring that the arrangements work.  When clients e-mail me on my day off, they will often flag that they are not expecting a response until I’m back in the office.  And when I do send e-mails and join calls on my day off, clients are always grateful and quick to thank me for my efforts.  There have, as one would expect, been occasions when I’ve had to cancel my day of for client commitments, but again, it has been refreshing that clients seem to have genuinely appreciated my willingness to be flexible when there are real deadlines to meet.

Other advisers involved on transactions have been equally supportive of my arrangements – seeking where possible to avoid scheduling calls and meetings for my day off.  I expect that, in part, a reason for this is that many of them would love to have arrangements similar to mine.  I hope that, as more and more men and women seek a degree of flexibility to sustain a work and family life, law firms will increasingly recognise and embrace the idea that such flexible arrangements don’t have to jeopardise client relations at all.

James is in his early 30s and father to a beautiful one year old girl.  He works in the legal profession but took a sabbatical when his wife returned to work from maternity leave, to provide childcare and spend the summer with his daughter. He returned to the office at the end of last year.