Originally Posted by
Channing
We (large law firm) are still struggling with how best to implement RTW. It is less an issue for the lawyers (each lawyer has their own office), though there are different perspectives across our offices (12 domestic and 5 Int'l). The primary concern are the staff who generally sit in cube groupings. The office has technically been open since June, 2020 and we never came close to the self imposed limit of 20% occupancy. The official RTW date is the Tuesday after Labor Day, with the idea being that even if people held off on summer camps - hopefully kids will be back at in-person school full time.
Among lawyers, our biggest hurdle right now are the junior associates who are fighting RTW tooth and nail. I'm not sure we will ever go back to pre-pandemic in-office levels, but we still generally believe a material portion of work time should be spent at the office to help attorneys grow and develop the soft skills as well as the basic skills necessary to succeed over the long-haul. That said, we are trying to rethink what that means. We may only have one or two days a month that are "everyone at the office days." However, each of the different practice groups is working to establish set time when they will be in the office (we are calling them "practice group anchor days"). We are also trying to think of hybrid not just in x-out-of-5 days a week, but also a subset of hours in the day (e.g., rather than a day at the office being 8-6 now it may be 10-3:30, where we start and finish our day at home and can miss rush hour).
Of course, if Delta continues this all may go the way of the dodo.