Heidi Reavis Weighs in on Pandemic Productivity Tracking Trends

Partner Heidi Reavis was recently quoted in an article entitled “Law Firms Largely Buck Growing Trend of Monitoring Remote Employees’ Productivity” about law firm productivity and tracking trends during Covid-19. In this remote work landscape, it can be difficult for employers, including law firms, to trust that employees are indeed working the hours they say they are working.

Given this, some larger firms and businesses including legally adjacent companies are tracking their staff productivity using software that records activity on company-owned devices to confirm that the employees are fulfilling work time expectations. Ms. Reavis noted that she has “seen an uptick in clients implementing productivity tools, including software that records when and what’s being viewed on a company-purchased electronic [and that] other clients are tracking computer usage without watching what the employee is viewing” but ultimately software allows for more detailed “cross-checking” potential.

That said, smaller scale operations including boutique and mid sized firms are trending towards continuing with a manual-oriented system and employing empathy and trust in order to monitor nonlawyer productivity rates rather then using the software. Elevate Vice President, John Reikes, noted that this may be fine, because at Elevate they “generally saw an increase in productivity” while working from home. When concerned about someone’s work completion rate, he urges employers to remember that “empathy is pretty critical to how we manage the time. Just because this person had a hit to productivity let’s just have a conversation and ask what’s going on, is everything OK. I think that’s something easy to forget.”

Read the full article on Law.com.