Firms will have to adapt business models and work hard on profile in 2022

Sitting in a meeting room, before the escalating infection levels of the Omnicron variant of Covid, on the first floor of Weightmans’ current office, Westgate Point, which has been home to the firm for 6 years since it merged with Ford Warrren, the firm’s regional office managing partner, Charles Heppenstall, talks about the challenges of Covid on the profession and the city.

Heppenstall has been in post six months and is currently overseeing the firm’s move to its new home on the riverside near to Leeds station which is expected to take place in March 2022.

He explained how Weightmans was quite well prepared for the challenge of remote working having already set up agile working practices prior to the now infamous press conference by Boris Johnson announcing the country should “stay home and save lives”.

But he says prior to Covid there was a “stigma of consciousness which said if I’m not in people will think I’m not working”. He notes with a wry smile that lawyers can be quite neurotic people, overthinking and over analysing what’s going on – admitting he himself did it – and that was perhaps a barrier that had existed to agile working pre-pandemic.

The challenge he says now is how they make agile working successful in the long term.

Firstly, a challenge raised recently during TheBusinessDesk.com’s recent Shifting Sands webinar is the issue of what impact the “always on mentality” is having, and if it is leading to professionals struggling to take a break.

Heppenstall says: “We’ve been very keen on ensuring everyone has downtime. Every week we have a call on Friday that is only five minutes long but it is designed to be the trigger to say ‘the weekend is coming’. In addition to that sort of signposting, if we see people are doing too much or taking too much on we will have a quiet word and reassign work so that there is an even spread across teams.”

The other challenge which is playing on the mind of Heppenstall is that of the next generation.

All organisations rely on fresh talent entering a business to keep it competitive. And within the professional services sector where the war on talent is high, and on the job training, whether formal or informal, within an office is crucial to developing the next generation, what challenges are the new agile working practices presenting?

“For me that’s the main reason to come back into the office, we’re only as good as the lawyers we bring on and if they’re not getting the training and they’re not learning by osmosis by just being around the ‘grey hairs’ and more experienced lawyers, then we have no future.

“We want to make sure that the lawyers we bring on have the talent and experience to carry the can, if you like, and carry the flame on. It sounds highfalutin but we need to ensure that we are producing good lawyers for the future and to do that it is about having them around and working collaboratively as well as those water cooler moments which you can’t recreate with Zoom meetings of teams which are far more formal interactions.”

In fact, this focus on the next generation is shaping the firm’s move to its new office. Heppenstall, who has been with the firm since Weightmans acquired Ford & Warren in 2015, having previously spent 16 years there, notes that the new building has been designed to be more open to encourage fewer silos between teams.

“The new environment has been designed to promote collaborative working and teamworking. We will be in a single open plan space which will have its own neighbourhoods for departments but will offer opportunities in terms of cross selling and being aware as to what’s going on in other areas of the business. ”

He notes that having spent 22 years on the first floor of the current seven floor building – many of which are now empty as a result of remote working – the under used spaced did create divides at times. Smiling as he remembers one pre-Covid Christmas party – “years and years ago when we were Ford and Warren” – when he had a conversation with someone and asked how long they’d been with the firm and the response was “seven years.” He realised it was about the same amount of time as he’d been there, but that they’d never met because they were spread across so many floors, exclaiming “that is shameful really!”

Looking ahead, Heppenstall notes that the challenges he sees businesses facing, from remote working and a changing focus, are mimicked by the city the firm calls home.

“I think in terms of the city, the challenge for everybody and all the businesses here is to try and reignite the market and get people back into the centre to reengage with the environment.

“It’s obvious that sandwich shops and coffee shops have been empty for periods because no one’s in town, and they may have to adjust to that because the future may mean there will be less footfall. People will start coming back in the office, that is going to happen, but it will be less often than before. So, business models will have to change in response to that and people like ourselves in the service industry may be less visible – which is a challenge to make sure that people don’t forget who you are and where you are because you’re not around as much.

“I think you’ll see firms working to make sure that they maintain their profile and that people – clients and potential employees – know that you’re still a player in the market.”

It’s at this point Heppenstall talks of the future.

“2022 will bring an exciting change for us with our move. It’s part of our plans for agile working and although we’re moving to a smaller area it will be a more modern and updated environment.

“I think the days of rows of desks full of people beavering away with them stacked high and crammed in is a thing of the past.”

He also builds on the earlier point about the future of the city, noting that the work such as Leeds 2023 is “fundamental” in bringing people back to the centre.

“Leeds and other cities are not just places people come to work, there’s the cultural side to them as well and people need to be drawn back and people need to rediscover what they have to offer.

“Leeds has so much to offer and we need to all reacquaint ourselves with the city, because when we are at home with our laptops and Netflix it’s easy to forget that there’s a wider world and the thrill of a live gig or performance.

“So, to come back and find that there is a vibrant scene in Leeds is an important part of the road map to get the city up and running again and whether it’s Leeds 2023, the International Festival of Ideas or the Film Festival, they are key to getting people back into town.”

As the meeting comes to an end it’s clear that Heppenstall is excited about what 2022 has in store, not least with the office move but also with the wider changes that will come as a result of the last 20 months of Covid.

He explains that he and Weightmans are involved in the Levelling Up Coalition with Justine Greening and he’s looking forward to working together with colleagues to bring forward the lawyers of tomorrow.

Noting that, as a firm, Covid means that geographic boundaries are less important now than the people.

“When we’re recruiting new staff we’re not necessarily looking at the Leeds office or the Manchester office, we’re looking nationally to bring in the best people to be part of any team because of home working we now have the freedom to do that.

“It’s exciting and opening up the horizons a bit of the wider teams, because as long as there is always a team of people to come together at points to share the benefit of experience it doesn’t matter where your local office actually is.”

He notes that one of the partners from the firm’s Newcastle office has recently become part of the Leeds office to lead the owner managed business sector, because where they live they can work between both offices. Similarly, Heppenstall has said he’s working more with the Manchester team too, because being based in Skipton it is almost equidistant to Leeds.

This transformation he says is therefore leading to more collaboration between offices and actually bringing the firm together as a “bigger team, rather than just a local team”.