The need to attract and retain talented and experienced staff prompted commercial lawyers, Macpherson and Kelley (M+K) to rethink flexible work arrangements with their employees.

More than 60 per cent of their 120 staff are female and of particular concern was the retention of young women in whom M+K had invested considerable time and effort in career development over a period of years.

M+K's new approach has brought about a positive, inclusive and empathic work culture where staff members are aware that they have access to family friendly work provisions and their needs for flexibility are addressed proactively. Staff members have ownership and the ability to address their concerns with Principals, as well as the Human Resources manager. They are encouraged to provide the solution – not just present the problem.

Individuals' requests for flexibility are considered within a framework of professional and client expectations. Provided the client is looked after, M+K supports these arrangements and employee ownership ensures that they are committed to success.

These changes have led to high morale and low turnover. Staff turnover figures are now significantly lower than across the profession generally.

M+K have introduced a paid parental leave policy effective 1 July, 2008 to attract candidates, reward tenure and retain the ongoing services of skilled and valuable employees. A skilled part-time employee is better than no employee, and paid parental leave ensures that there is a commitment on behalf of the employee to return to work. Given the shrinking workforce, part-time employment is becoming more prevalent and firms are finding ways of ensuring part-time arrangements are profitable.

Currently, 30 per cent of female staff members are working on a part-time basis. The majority of these employees worked full-time prior to taking maternity leave and have subsequently been accommodated by the firm on a part-time basis on their return.

In the last 12 months, 16 out of 45 support staff members have worked part-time. In addition, many support staff have different start and finish times, such as the receptionist who has just arranged to work from 7:30am to 2:30pm, or the Senior Associate with two children who works from the office three days per week and at home one day per week.

Working from home is a particularly popular family friendly option. In any one week there would be 20 to 30 lawyers who work from home at some point. These arrangements are sometimes formal with a set day or two from home, or short term, for example to care for a sick child, or simply people heading home early after meetings. M+K have found that some jobs are not able to be performed from home.

To facilitate working from home, M+K provide a home-office setup that allows client interaction and access to appropriate technologies via direct office computer connections, company identified email and, in some cases, Blackberry phones.

Job sharing has also been explored with mixed success over the years.

Fiona Li Donni, Human Resources Manager, offers some practical advice for other employers:

• Don’t expect it to be easy and don't expect that every situation will be successful. Learn from the mistakes.
• Approach every request individually – there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.
• Everyone in the firm can't work from home as a threshold office presence is required in the legal industry. This needs to be maintained to ensure networking, community building, referral of services, trust, respect and confidence of colleagues and clients.
• Pre-plan to ensure any urgent client request for staff accessibility on a non-office day can be accommodated.
• Be prepared to say "no" but don’t do it as a knee-jerk reaction.