Page 17 - CCCA 259155 Magazine_Winter 2016

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AT A MACRO LEVEL, THE CBA FUTURES REPORT TELLS US THAT
“TRANSFORMATIVE FORCES ARE CHANGING THE CANADIAN
LEGAL PROFESSION, AS REPRESENTED BY THE KEY DRIVERS
OF GLOBALIZATION, LIBERALIZATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE
LACK OF ACCESS TO LEGAL SERVICES.” AS BOTH PROVIDERS
ith this ever-present focus AND CONSUMERS OF LEGAL SERVICES, IN-HOUSE COUNSEL ployees are given a choice
on effciency, increasingly ARE DRIVING THIS CHANGE. THE MAJORITY OF THE DEMAND— about where, when, and how
Wmore in-house legal teams WHETHER FROM THE IN-HOUSE COUNSEL’S ORGANIZATION OR they work, they are more
are looking at virtual options—a productive, engaged, and
trend that has been going on in FROM THE IN-HOUSE COUNSEL TO AN OUTSIDE FIRM—CAN BE loyal.” For all employers, the
private practice for many years BOILED DOWN TO THREE WORDS: BETTER, FASTER, CHEAPER. most important employees
now. According to the LexisNexis are the ones delivering the
whitepaper, The Future of Law, the most successful law frms op- best results, not necessarily the ones working the longest hours.
erate as virtual teams: “highly mobile and always connected to Dan Pontefract, Chief Envisioner at TELUS, says that his
the resources they need to manage projects.” company rigorously measures hundreds of different factors to
So can fexible working arrangements really work for in- best inform decision makers on an issue such as fex work, and
house legal teams? Of course they can—and many organiza- gave an excellent example illustrating the advantages they have
tions are proving that. In Canada’s leading organizations, fex found by offering it. He explained that for a position that may
work is a strategic driver to retain top talent and grow busi- have attracted 100,000 resumes in the past, they now receive
ness, so it is being increasingly offered to eligible employees, upwards of 400,000, giving them a pool of highly qualifed can-
including legal teams. For instance, Ceridian Canada, TELUS didates to choose from.
Corporation and Thomson Reuters all have large legal teams When candidates are asked what attracted them to TELUS,
that enjoy varying levels of fex work—to great success. And ac- one of the top three answers is always the fexible work arrange-
cording to Edward A. Friedland, General Counsel at Thomson ments. Other indicators of its success are increased employee
Reuters Legal, this trend will only continue to grow. engagement (which the company measures twice a year), de-
“Virtual work is like gravity,” says Friedland. “You can like it creased absenteeism (down an average of fve days per year per
or not like it, but it doesn’t matter—it is going to happen.” employee) and a signifcant reduction of involuntary attrition.
I didn’t ask Dan to quantify this in dollars, but I think it is a safe
The Business Advantage bet those fgures are signifcant.
Indeed, “the better you are at recruiting and retaining top
Flexible working arrangements refect a shift in the work talent, the more productive and proftable the business will be,”
culture. The focus is on outcomes and engagement, rather as stated Scott Kitching, Executive Vice President and General
than face time. The benefts of fex work are multifaceted Counsel at Ceridian HCM, Inc., in a 2014 CCCA webinar on
and well documented for both employees and employers. virtual work teams.
For instance, on the employee side, fexibility has been found Here at the CCCA, we have begun the conversation around
to increase loyalty and engagement while reducing stress, whether we need physical space to support our membership
commuting costs and turnover. For employers, it can reduce or whether we should be moving to a virtual model to save on
overhead costs and absenteeism, increase productivity and infrastructure costs and provide a more fexible environment
innovation, and grow the size and quality of the talent pool for employees. Some employees already work completely from
you are drawing from. home offces, such as the editor of this magazine. While we
According to the Shaw Business paper, Workshifting: The Busi- come together for regular meetings, for the most part, work is
ness Case, “Leading global employers are proving that when em- done electronically or over the phone.

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