have it fall apart with the first exception. Most firms faced with this scenario compensate such an employee through the year-end bonus structure, rather than change the base rate of pay. This allows for some (but certainly not complete) secrecy from other employees and takes the compensation negotiation out of the recruiting process. It does require, however, a leap of faith from the incoming employee that the promises being made will be fulfilled, and this is likely to become an issue before acceptance of the offer. The candidate may ask for some comfort from a decision maker that the expected extra compensation will in fact occur.

After the Offer: Selling the Firm

Once the candidate has been selected and the offer has been transmitted (preferably through a personal meeting or phone call, not by a letter), it will come as no surprise that more often than not, there is not an immediate acceptance. As stated earlier, the firm should probably not assume that it is the only suitor for the services of the candidate. Therefore, the members of the firm may be put into the situation where they will have to sell the candidate on the firm and themselves. For the most part, this varies by candidate: It is usually obvious whom the firm is competing with for the candidate and what the candidate believes are the sticking points for accepting the offer. The critical guidance here is that the members of the firm should not oversell and should be careful not to pressure the candidate into making a decision. Candidates appreciate the time and hassle-free period in which to make this important decision, and constant phone calls or lunches serve only to muddy the waters for many candidates, and to introduce undue pressure into the process. Suggested best practices in this time period are periodic personal letters from individual partners in the firm, offering to answer any questions that the candidate may have. A hard sell may also have the unintended consequence of making the candidate believe the firm is desperate or that it is trying to force an acceptance before the candidate finds out something the firm would prefer to keep hidden.

However, another possible scenario is that the candidate will have an offer from one firm, but is actually waiting on an offer from his or her first choice. Thus, the firm that has made the offer is the candidates backup. There are a variety of ways to tell if this is the situation with a particular candidate. Members of the firm should be advised that by the third time you take the offered candidate out to lunch, his or her questions should already be answered. Either the candidate is having trouble making up his or her mind, in which situation no amount of cajoling is likely to do any good, or the firm is being played for a better offer from someone else. In either situation, it is critical that the firm handle the issue professionally. Once it is determined that sufficient resources have been expended on a candidate, the firm

should make it clear that it will await the candidates decision within a reasonable time frame, but that the offer does have an expiration date.

The Phases of Retention

Postrecruiting, professional staff retention becomes important. This section covers the issues related to retention. Chapter 10 discusses compensation, career tracks, and professional development in more detail.

Periodic Individual Review and Feedback (Individual Review)

Feedback, feedback, feedback. Regardless of a professionals view of retention in general, it is axiomatic that individual reviews are a staple of firm life. Questions remain, however, around how formal the review process is (or should be), the extent to which reviews affect compensation through bonuses and merit salary increases, and the time periods appropriate for review. Above all, the review process should be honest-do not allow the professional to hold views of his or her abilities or opportunities for advancement that the firm does not hold.

Formal reviews are the most widely accepted manner of providing feedback within the firm. The formal reviews should take place on a periodic basis, but no less than annually, and should take place at the same time of year for all professional employees. Six-month reviews can be beneficial, but this will depend entirely on the business of the firm. If the employee has been working on only one project, for one supervisor, for six months, it is likely that the employee and the supervisor both know exactly where the employee stands with regard to his or her work, and a formal review would be nothing more than window-dressing and a waste of everyones time.

The reviews should have both a scoring system under certain categories and a section for the evaluating professional to add personal comments or expand on answers in the numerical section.

The written evaluation allows for the supervisors or evaluators to clearly document the professionals progress, strengths, and weaknesses. Farther down the road, when the professional is being considered for promotion or partnership, these evaluations can present a strong road map and argument either for or against the promotion. For this reason, firms should be encouraged to be honest on the evaluations. Nothing engenders bad will and inter-firm gossip more quickly than a firm that strings along its associates, only to tell them after seven years that they are not partner material. It is far better to keep professionals apprised on a yearly basis of their prospects for advancement and how such prospects, if bleak, can be improved. Also, once it

becomes obvious that a person (such as a misfit, as described earlier) needs to find another home, that should be dealt with at the next yearly evaluation at least, and it can be done by a trusted advisor informally prior to that. Both the employee and the firm will be much better off if everyone is honest about the future direction of each party. Chapter 10 outlines the process of appraising employee performance in detail.

Employee Satisfaction Programs on a Class-Wide or Level-Wide Basis (Group Review and Feedback)

The concept of group feedback in a professional services firm can take many forms: associate committee, non-equity steering committee, associate compensation review, and so on. The basic premise behind each is the same: to serve as a conduit through which nonequity professionals provide input to the firm. The meetings are usually held at least yearly and in some firms, as often as quarterly. There is normally no voting power, and equity holders have no obligation to heed the committees advice. However, it allows the associates to feel as if their concerns are being heard, and it provides for a source of information that many partners would never know.

For example, many partners speak only of office matters and would rather leave all other matters (including quality of life) to the hours when employees are off the clock. However, if there is a competing firm that continually addresses quality of life matters, the associate committee at Firm 1 is likely to bring that to the attention of the equity partners. If the matter is a continual refrain, perhaps some partners will engage before their own associates decide to test the waters at Firm 2.

Mentorship Programs

The concept of a formal mentoring program in a professional services firm has gained far more credence in the past 10 years than at any time prior. However, it is a mistake to believe that the concept of mentors in the professions is anything new. In decades past, the only way to enter into a profession was to attach yourself to a mentor, and read the law within a law office by serving as a clerk for a number of years until you were ready to take the bar exam. Ask any lawyer about his or her formative professional years, and you will hear the stories of the mentor, whether it was a friendly one or not.

Professional services firms have taken the concept of mentoring and formalized it, thereby somewhat manufacturing what was previously an organic relationship. In years past, a mentor and a protege found each other through a natural process-the younger professionals would work on a project here and a project there and eventually find a senior person whom