News focus: A tale of two offices

International firm Stephenson Harwood’s decision to cut salaries by 20% for staff who choose to work from home full-time made national news headlines this week, suggesting its new ‘hybrid working policy’ resonates far beyond the legal sector.

From this month, the firm’s office-based staff ‘have the option to work remotely for up to two days a week, according to business need’, a policy it said works well for ‘the vast majority of our people and the candidates we speak to’.

Those who wish to work from home permanently can do so, but for a price – a reduction in their salary by a fifth, which for a newly-qualified solicitor on £90,000 a year amounts to an £18,000 gross cut.

Staff who take up the offer will reportedly still have to come in to the office once a month, though the firm said it will cover their travel and accommodation expenses.

Stephenson Harwood said it had recruited lawyers who are based outside London ‘for resourcing reasons during the pandemic’ – on salaries which are ‘different from what we offer our people in London’ – and has now ‘opened the option’ of full-time remote working to other members of staff.

A spokesperson for the firm said: ‘Like so many firms, we see value in being in the office together regularly, while also being able to offer our people flexibility.’

They added: ‘Recently we’ve opened the option to existing members of staff, so anyone interested in taking advantage of the additional flexibility offered by the package can have a conversation about whether it can work for their role.’

The flexibility of being able to work from home – which, of course, avoids long periods of commuting, hours which could be spent working – may be attractive to those who discovered a better work-life balance during the pandemic, although it is believed that few have taken up the offer.

But staff who have looked at Stephenson Harwood’s accounts for the year to 30 April 2021 may question whether a firm posting pre-tax profits of nearly £75m needs to cut their pay by 20% for deciding they work better from home.

Stephenson Harwood also cut its direct operating costs by nearly £6m in the last financial year, presumably in part as a result of Covid-enforced working from home.

'Like so many firms, we see value in being in the office together regularly, while also being able to offer our people flexibility'

Stephenson Harwood

The move raises the question of whether the savings gained by cutting home-working staff’s pay will be passed on to clients – and, indeed, whether billable hours targets will be cut commensurately.

Stephenson Harwood is far from the only firm to offer incentives of one form or another to lure workers back to the office after lockdown, with international firm Hogan Lovells reportedly teaming up with ‘puppy therapy specialists’ Paws In Work to give its staff puppy yoga classes.

The new policy has certainly exercised Gazette readers, some of whom have pointed out the possibility that staff who choose to work from home could be passed over for promotion and suggested that, by extension, solicitors’ jobs could be ‘offshored’ beyond the UK altogether.

But other firms have taken a different approach, embracing remote working for the foreseeable future: East Anglia-based Ellisons Solicitors, for example, says it now has ‘100% of staff working flexibly so they can work in a way which suits their family best, with no reduction in pay’.

Ellisons HR director Lizzy Firmin, writing this week for the Gazette, said that there are ‘excellent reasons why a move back to office life is welcome to both employers and employees’, emphasising the importance of face-to-face interactions on productivity and happiness.

But, she adds, ‘the office is not for everyone 100% of the time – the key to our success is about achieving a balance’. Working from home is not ‘a less difficult option to the office’ but is ‘simply one of the options open’, Firmin says.

Ellisons’ staff have spoken positively about being able to take their children to school in the mornings and avoid long car journeys on their way to the office, advantages that will likely make them happier – and more productive.

The very fact that Stephenson Harwood’s decision has made headlines in national newspapers and broadcasters – and even across the pond with CNBC – speaks to the wider issue of post-pandemic remote or hybrid working.

Many businesses are still grappling with how to accommodate new perspectives on where work fits into people’s lives. Stephenson Harwood’s new policy and the wider reaction to it suggests the issue remains sensitive and deeply contentious.