Law firms encourage workers to return to office with these perks
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Law firms are trying to entice employees to come back to the office with perks that include free food and a casual, fun atmosphere.
Law.com has the story.
“Simply showing up to the office is no longer the default, and law firms are looking for ways to bring people in,” the article reports.
Law.com cited these perks:
• Some law firms are offering free food. They include Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, which is offering free “grab and go” lunches on its “Reconnect Wednesdays.”
• Some law firms are relaxing dress codes. Some examples are Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Fried Frank and Greenberg Traurig, which allow lawyers to wear jeans and business casual attire in the office.
• A committee at Cozen O’Connor created a charity cornhole competition for lawyers and staff members. The finalists will play the last game in Florida.
At Dickinson Wright offices in Chicago, lawyers and staff members gathered to commemorate their office return on the Thursday after Labor Day, the New York Times reports. The firm was encouraging lawyers to spend some time in the office and was working out part-time remote schedules with younger lawyers.
The event “looked like a middle-aged person’s idea of what a young person would find fun,” according to the New York Times. “There was a dartboard on the wall, a pool table to the side and a Blue Bunny ice cream cart near the entrance, tended to by representatives from HR … The group bantered gamely while clutching treats.”
The New York Times noted a “relative lack of millennials” at the celebration. A reporter noticed a first-year associate who entered the room near the end of the event and grabbed an ice cream bar. She briefly talked with a few colleagues before leaving.
The reporter tracked down the associate, Akshita Singh, “expecting to find her disillusioned with the office return and irritated by the oldsters trying to sell it.”
It turned out Singh had embraced coming into the office, but she couldn’t spend much time at the event because she was swamped with work. She told the New York Times that she hoped to come in to the office two or three days per week, although she came in to the office more often in the weeks that followed.
Singh pointed out that a benefit of being in the office is that people think of you when handing out work.
“It’s good to have face time, even if it’s with one person,” she said.
