Research shows a correlation between employee wellness and profitability
How to put people first while meeting client demands within the billable-hours system is a central issue for the legal sector when it comes to enhancing the health and well-being of lawyers, says Leigh-Ann Ing, Gowling WLG’s new head of wellness.
The firm recently named Ing to the role, and her background includes over two decades of organizational wellness and productivity experience, most recently as the director of global wellness and benefits strategy at OMERS. Ing will work with Gowling’s leadership team to create and execute a “comprehensive firm-wide strategy around wellbeing, health and work-life integration,” said the firm’s announcement.
“The issue, by and large, is that we've always looked at wellness and high-performance cultures in direct conflict with each other,” says Ing. “They should be looked at as complementary.”
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“They should be embedded, deeply ingrained into each other, and seen as a benefit to each other.”
She points to a 2019 study, “Employee Wellbeing, Productivity, and Firm Performance,” from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. The analysis of 339 research studies, which looked at the wellbeing of 1,882,131 employees in 82,248 business units in 49 industries, demonstrated that employees’ satisfaction with their workplace was correlated with higher productivity and customer loyalty and lower staff turnover. The study concludes that higher wellbeing leads to greater profitability.
Gowling is systematically analysing “how work is being done” because that significantly impacts client retention, revenue growth, engagement, and the attraction and retention of top talent, says Ing.
She says the most significant wellness issues cropping up with legal professionals tend to be around mental health.
“Whether it's the workload, whether it is the ongoing client demands, the billable-hours model, needing to be on at all times – that all has such a profound impact on our mental health,” says Ing. “Within the legal industry, by and large, this is the largest concern.”
Last October, a research team at the Université de Sherbrooke, in partnership with the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the Canadian Bar Association, published the first comprehensive national study on wellness in the legal profession. The researchers found that legal professionals of every practice type and in all jurisdictions suffer “significantly high levels of psychological distress, depression, anxiety, burnout and suicidal ideation.” And those in the earlier stages of their careers showed the highest rates of distress.
While studying health sciences with the intention of pursuing a career in medicine, Ing “fell in love” with population health promotion, which examines human behaviour and attitudes toward health and well-being and seeks to change those behaviours on a large scale – by decreasing smoking rates, for example. She identified the workplace as an ideal arena for population health promotion, and through her career, has learned that progress on wellness requires knowledge and skills in areas such as disability management, employee health and benefits, human resources, growth and development, and diversity, equity, and inclusion – all of which have “relative synergistic opportunities.”
In designing a firm strategy, Ing says they will work with all Gowling staff to examine various aspects of their overall wellbeing, including physical wellness, emotional and mental health, financial wellbeing, and social connection. Ing is embarking on a three-to-five-year endeavour, beginning with an “active and thoughtful listening tour” across all the firm’s offices, followed by focus groups that will contemplate how to approach and define wellness while allowing staff to assess strategy.
“Ultimately, what we're looking to achieve here is fostering and integrating a culture of wellbeing within the firm, whereby it is central to everything that we do, how we treat each other internally, how we work with our clients.”