In December, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM), India’s largest law firm, declared a “rejuvenation break” for all its members and staff for a period of nine days. Partner Shweta Shroff Chopra says that the break was a part of SAM’s strategy to enhance employee wellbeing, and talks about why the firm has made it such a focus.
ALB: What challenges has the pandemic posed for your lawyers in terms of mental and physical wellness? How are you as a firm helping them?
Chopra: The unprecedented nature of the pandemic entailed focusing on safeguarding individual and family members’ health and preventing infection, that coupled with adapting to working from home, generated heightened levels of uncertainty and anxiety among people.
Realising that multiple challenges were bound to emerge as we focused on ensuring seamless business continuity, the firm set up a COVID Response Team (CRT), including partners and colleagues from our business services functions. The CRT has played diverse roles, whether it be guiding the transition to work from home or sensitising our people on the need to safeguard themselves and their families or helping them secure timely medical care.
The CRT strengthened our well-ness program, to ensure our people had the necessary resources when required and felt well cared for. Apart from facilitating access to doctors, medication and hospitalisation, the firm’s comprehensive mental wellness program facilitated regular talks by senior psychologists on diverse mental health topics such as building resilience at the workplace. We also tied up with the Inner Hour, a mental health support online platform that provides extensive resources to our people to deal with anxiety, uncertainty, loneliness and depression, including access to therapy sessions with psychologists, at no charge. One of our partners also facilitated weekly mindfulness and breathwork sessions to help people decompress. The firm also encouraged team leaders to create opportunities for “water-cooler conversations” by hosting online team lunches and Zoom celebrations to foster bonding.
Over the festive break in December 2021, the firm announced a nine-day rejuvenation break for all our people, to enable them time to rejuvenate and reinvigorate, prior to starting the new year.
ALB: Across the world, employers are witnessing the Great Resignation, and legal is no different. Based on your experiences from the pandemic, what steps can law firms proactively take in order to ensure retention?
Chopra: With work-from-home being a norm during the pandemic, flexible work policies have become imperative. The firm is introducing a hybrid work model that will enable our people to contribute from anywhere. I believe that law firms need to evaluate alternate work arrangements such as flexi- hours, part-time working, role-sharing, project-based engagement, etc. to keep people engaged.
A key challenge that organisations are also facing is the issue of burnout and this needs to be addressed. While there are basic issues like fair allocation of work, and proper compensatory rest breaks in between stressful projects, the issue is deeper and one of a pervasive “urgency culture” in the corporate world. While we cannot change that in the short term, it is important to manage work dynamically, push back on artificial deadlines, be responsive and supportive, and above all, ensure that people get undisturbed free time away from work, so they are able to be themselves, guilt-free! This is not only about ensuring annual leave is taken but also that day to day priorities that are important, are valued and the firm meets them where they are at. In addition, changes at the policy level can help people to bring their whole selves to work. We are re-looking at our firm’s policies in a way that facilitates this change.
ALB: What does law firm culture mean to you? What kind of culture is SAM trying to build?
Chopra: Any culture is not a statement on the wall. It is something that is embodied in the way people are within the workplace, is consistently palpable across the board and incursions on which are not acceptable; it is the beating heart of an organisation. As a general matter, law firm culture has been largely characterised by doing what it takes to win. Unfortunately, this has created widespread toxicity, increasingly disillusioning people, leading to many young bright minds leaving the legal profession, despite having studied for over five years.
At SAM, we are working to change what Big Law culture ought to be. For us, it is about delivering excellence, but with passion and a heart. We are striving to build a culture that genuinely cares and is rooted in valuing contribution, growth, respect, and empathy. This involves re-evaluating our policies, processes, decision-making drivers, and the behaviours they encourage.
It has started with listening with an open heart and mind. It is also about being transparent, open, and upfront in communicating – the good news, but certainly also the bad news. We are working to ensure that people have a clear sense of where things are at. Finally, we want to build a culture that fosters a sense of community and purpose, while pursuing excellence for our clients, anchored on innovation to create a better place for the generations to come.
