Does Your Part-Time Program Work? The PAR Usability
Test.
PAR's usability test is designed to test whether a
firm's reduced-hours policy is usable and effective. The concept of
usability is derived from the important work of Professor Susan Eaton
of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The PAR
usability test employs six basic measures. The first two are direct
measures of usability; the second two measures are designed to test
for the presence of two common problems; the final two measures are
indirect tests of whether a firm's policy is successful in achieving
retention goals. The last three measures are derived from the
benchmarking program of Deloitte & Touche.
The Test:
1. Usage rate, broken down by sex
2. Median number of hours worked and
duration of the balanced hours schedule
3. Schedule
Creep
4. Comparison of the assignments of
balanced hours attorneys before and after they reduced their hours
5. Comparative promotion rates of attorneys
on standard and balanced hours schedules
6. Comparative attrition rates of attorneys
on standard and balanced hours schedules
The discussion below addresses each of these six measures of a usable balanced hours policy.
1. Usage Rate
Only 2.9% of the attorneys in the law
firms listed in the National Directory of Legal Employers work reduced
schedules. Retaining a few lawyers is certainly better than retaining
none at all, but a usage rate this low will not result in improving
overall retention rates among mothers -- and others -- who seek a
balanced life. Moreover, research in social cognition reports that,
when women are substantially outnumbered in a predominantly male
environment, the tendency is for a few superstars to be treated very,
very well, whereas most others drop off the map -- even women who are
fully as qualified as are the males in their class. Firms need to ask
whether their existing part-time programs have this "superstar
problem": whether successful use of their part-time policies is
limited to a handful of exceptional performers. In this context, the
firm stands to lose from its pool of talent many women who are at
least as talented as the men who ultimately make partner.
Some firms consciously discourage use
of balanced hours options for fear that "if we make it easy to go
part-time," the floodgates will open. In fact, this has not
happened at any firm, as is discussed in Section IV of the Final
Report.
A low usage rate is a strong signal
that a firm's culture makes the use of hours options undesirable,
either because of schedule creep, or because of adverse career
consequences perceived to accompany a decision to reduce hours, or
both.
2. Median Hours Worked and Duration of
Balanced Hours Schedules
A common assumption in Washington is that the "responsible"
way to work balanced hours is to work an 80% schedule for only a
limited period. Firms that structure their reduced-hours programs
around this assumption likely do not have a usable policy that will
result in decreased attrition. A survey by the ABA showed 46.8% of
associates at large firms nationally work more than 60 hours per week,
which translates into a 48-hour week for a typical 80%
"part-time" schedule. Even at firms where associates bill an
average of 2,000 hours per year -- as is common in the Washington
area -- part-time attorneys work about 40 hours per week to make
their billable targets. Given the low percentage of mothers in the
labor force who work substantial overtime, this is not a schedule that
will prove effective at retaining women in proportionate numbers.
Moreover, the assumption that lawyers will reduce their hours only for
a limited period is problematic. The Massachusetts study found that
the partners who responded to its questionnaire had been working a
reduced schedule for an average of seven years (which probably meant
that many partners had been working reduced hours for a much longer
period). For these reasons, it is important for
firms to track the median number of hours worked, and the median
duration of balanced hour schedules. (The median is chosen instead of
the mean because this makes it less likely that the short hours or
long duration of one person's schedule will give a false impression
of the experience of balanced hours attorneys considered as a group.)
If firms find the median hours of balanced hours attorneys are in a
range that would be considered full-time or overtime by non-law firm
standards, their policies are not effective and usable. Similarly, if
firms find the median duration of balanced hours schedules is short, a
few months to a year, their policies probably will not be effective
retention tools.
3. Schedule Creep
Talk of schedule creep is rampant in Washington. It is one of the
major reasons attorneys leave law firms rather than seeking balanced
hours, and that attorneys on reduced schedules give up and decide to
leave their firms. Indeed, some Washington lawyers have suggested that
schedule creep is part of a semi-conscious policy to undermine
reduced-hours schedules, to ensure that few people opt to work less
than the standard schedule.
Measuring schedule creep is an indispensable step to implementing a
usable and effective policy of balanced hours. Surprisingly few
employers keep track of it, although it is easy to do. Firms that have
demonstrated a substantial commitment to making balanced hours work
have done so for some time. Records already exist documenting how much
time each attorney works; all that's required is to compare the
hours worked with the hours budgeted. If the comparison shows that
attorneys on nonstandard schedules are consistently working more hours
than their balanced hours agreements call for them to work, then
schedule creep is undermining the effectiveness and usability of the
policy.
4. Comparison of Work Assignments
"Assignments determine skills,
skills determine advancement." If balanced hours attorneys do not
get quality work assignments -- and many report they do not -- their
development will suffer. Moreover, if balanced hours attorneys are
shifted to nothing more than low-level, routine matters, they will
soon become disenchanted and leave the firm. Both Ernst & Young and Deloitte
& Touche keep track of whether those on alternative schedules are
receiving high quality assignments by assessing whether they are
assigned to work with the firm's largest and most valuable clients.
This is a rough initial test that can signal whether a nonstandard
schedule negatively affects the quality of assignments. It is not a
perfect measure, for sometimes balanced hours attorneys are
marginalized in other ways -- by being assigned rote tasks, or only
small parts of larger matters. Perhaps the best test is to compare the
assignments an attorney received while working a standard schedule
with those he or she received while working reduced hours. (For new
hires, the attorney's assignments can be compared to those of other
attorneys at the same level in the same practice group.) To compare work assignments, firms need only look at
the billing records of balanced hours attorneys. If too much rote work
and too little client contact is evident, for example, firms know
their policies are likely not effective and usable.
5. Comparative Promotion Rates
Most law firms now hire entering classes composed of roughly equal
numbers of men and women, yet 1999 data show that 85% of Washington
partners are still men. One factor contributing to the low proportion
of women partners is the practice, de facto or de jure,
of taking reduced-hours attorneys off the partnership track. As noted, numerous attorneys view
reduced-hour work as ending all hope of partnership. Firms should test
the accuracy of this perception by comparing the promotion rates of
attorneys on balanced schedules to those on standard schedules. While
the promotion rate will not necessarily be identical for these two
groups, a persistent imbalance in favor of standard hours attorneys
may well indicate that balanced hours attorneys are being penalized in
terms of promotions.
6. Comparative Attrition Rates
The final element of PAR's test compares the attrition rates of
attorneys on balanced schedules with those of attorneys on standard
schedules. The Massachusetts study found that, given the problems with
existing part-time policies, the attrition rates among reduced-hours
attorneys were even higher than among other attorneys. While men with
standard schedules had an attrition rate of 9% and women working
standard schedules had an attrition rate of 12% in 1997 and 1998,
women working reduced hours averaged nearly 23%. These figures suggest
the usefulness of a comparison between men working full-time, women
working full-time, men working part-time, and women working part-time.
Given the intense demand for reduced hours, if the attrition rate
among attorneys working reduced hours is significantly higher than for
the other groups, this may signal problems with the existing balanced
hours policy.
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