Biglaw Firm Scraps Their Old Performance Reviews
HoLove says the old system was 'broken.'
Is there anything more frustratingly useless as performance reviews? If anyone you actually work with remembers to take the time away from their own billable hours, it’s almost inevitably from a minor assignment you completed in three hours nine months ago that you can only barely recall.
Hogan Lovells recognized the system was “broken” — hell, they never even went back to the performance reviews when partnership or other big employment decisions came up — and so they’re doing away withe the antiquated system. As reported by Law.com:
“When it came time to make important decisions—who should be advanced, who should become a partner—we never went back and read the reports because they were in a sense detached from the process of managing development,” said Steve Immelt, Hogan Lovells’ Washington, D.C.-based CEO. “We thought the system we had was broken in a number of respects and not really delivering what our people needed and wanted.”
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In place of the old system, HoLove has rolled out a Pathways program, which gives associates “flash feedback.” The program has associates receiving three pieces of feedback from co-workers every four months. Even though the new system is designed to be more responsive to the needs of associates, Immelt is aware it may take some time before everyone is on board:
“Even saying that the old system was broken didn’t mean that this was the right solution,” he said. “This does change the approach, and we all know how lawyers don’t like things to change, so we wanted to be sure this was going to be an approach people would adapt and pick up.”
This feedback system is not designed to inform questions of compensation, but it meant to develop associates and help them figure out where they fit into life at the firm.
“You find in the law firm setting that people have very high expectations, very demanding, but there’s not only a reluctance at times to give constructive feedback but also a reluctance to give positive feedback,” Immelt said. “So by trying to change that rhythm … it’s just another way we as a firm are trying to adapt to a modern workplace with a modern group of associates who have different expectations than I had many years ago when I was a young associate.”
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Good for HoLove: they not only recognized something was wrong at the firm, but are actually working to do something about it.
Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
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