Finding a balance between work and leisure is an ongoing battle for most Australians, with its achievement much easier said than done. Briana Everett looks at the reality of work/life balance in Australian law firms

In recent years the legal profession has sought to encourage a better work/life balance for its members. However, despite the greater availability of flexible work arrangements in law firms and the increasing acknowledgment of the associated advantages, achieving that balance remains a work in progress for the industry.

The 2010 Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI) report by the University of South Australia's Centre for Work + Life recently revealed that a quarter of full-time women and one fifth of full-time men are dissatisfied with their work/life balance, significantly more than three years ago.

Director of the Centre for Work + Life and co-author of the AWALI report, Professor Barbara Pocock, says successive AWALI surveys show that work/life interference is not declining in Australia.

"Despite much rhetoric about the importance of the issue and its importance in the lives of many Australians, effective action is slow in too many places," says Pocock.

Report co-author Dr. Natalie Skinner says that while recent changes to the Fair Work Act 2009 give parents more scope to request flexibility in the workplace, more reform is needed.

An industry finding its balance

Law firms are increasingly seeking to provide flexible work arrangements for employees, including part-time work and job-share arrangements; flexible start and finish times; work from home options; career breaks; graduated return to work and phased retirement arrangements.

Firms are increasingly realising the benefits of flexible work arrangements in terms of retention, attracting top talent and reducing absenteeism, and are making an effort to overcome the inherent trade-off between the provision of flexible work and catering to the needs of the business and clients.

"One of the most significant issues in large professional organisations, like ours and accountants, is what I call the 'flexibility challenge'," says Corrs Chambers Westgarth partner and diversity council member, Stephanie Daveson. "There's no doubt that organisations like ours and our clients demand of us a degree of flexibility that impacts on one's personal commitments. So rather than ignore that elephant in the room we talked about it and work-shopped how we could accommodate different arrangements."

Achieving a work-life balance within a firm, according to Swaab Attorneys chief executive officer Bronwyn Pott, is about gathering like-minded people together and ensuring everyone understands how they fit within the firm structure, what is expected of them and how they contribute. "A lot of the time people will feel balanced and rewarded in their workplace if they know what's expected of them and they are getting regular feedback," she says.

A key consideration for firms addressing work/life balance, says Pott, is sustainability. "The big thing is whether or not what you're asking people to do is sustainable over the long term," she says. "I don't think asking seven and a half hours of billable time a day from somebody is sustainable over the long term because everybody knows it takes about an hour and half to do a billable hour."

Pott explains that Swaab Attorneys has lower billable hour targets than many other firms and this helps the firm's employees achieve a balance. "If you're not expected to work most of your waking hours, you can find time for balance," she says. "I think we're more moderate in what our expectations of staff are."

Although there are still some obstacles standing in the way of work/life balance for the industry in general, there are some lawyers who say they have managed to achieve a balance and firms are seeing results.

"We've had the flexibility at work guidelines in place for over a year now and our parental leave policy in place for five years," says Corrs' national human resources manager, Alexis Navie. "We have noticed a steady uptake of flexible work options and in the five years of our paid parental leave policy, the number of people taking parental leave has more than doubled as has the number of people returning to work."

Proving that a work/life balance can be a reality for lawyers, mother of two Janine Gregory works four days a week at Slater & Gordon, as practice group leader of the firm's motor vehicle accidents team.

As the manager of approximately 60 people in Victoria, Gregory admits the constant balancing act can be difficult at times, but says working parents must leave work at a reasonable hour and businesses just have to accept that.

"There used to be a theory where people would say that litigation lawyers can't work part-time. I think that's a myth," Gregory says. "The key ingredients have got to be the way things are structured and the ability to delegate effectively, [as well as] getting the financial settings and the resourcing right to be able to manage....there is a cultural comfort around women working part-time and there's an acceptance here that you can actually do it."

Changing attitudes at the top

Firms are now offering a variety of tools to facilitate flexible work in a bid to win talent. However, the effectiveness of these arrangements depends on the attitudes of those in leadership or management positions.

Despite the growing number of flexible work arrangements offered by firms and the positive change that has occurred within the industry, a stigma still exists surrounding the utilisation of many flexible work arrangements and there is a lack of trust between firms and employees.

Good Health Solutions managing director Dr. John Lang says while there's a lot of talk about improving work-life balance he does not believe there has been a significant change. "Whether [work/life balance] is actually changing on the ground - I think not, largely," he says. "But it's not because of the lack of good will of the companies."

Dr. Lang, who works at the forefront of workplace health management, describes a prevailing scepticism and lack of trust between firms and lawyers. He says while the firms are trying to create an environment that allows lawyers the flexibility they need, lawyers believe that if they do take time off their actions will be viewed negatively by management. "There's that feeling that what [firms] say and what [firms] do is different," he says. "It's two steps forward and two steps back all the time."

Pott agrees and says without strong relationships within teams, work/life balance is not possible. "It can be hard to manage a team if you're not in the office the majority of the time, but if you've got good relationships within your team, nobody minds if you're home two days a week or where you are, as long as you're contactable and accessible for clients," she says.

According to Slater & Gordon's HR manager Christine Heyting, the biggest challenge with respect to encouraging work/life balance is changing the attitudes of people managers and increasing their understanding.

"The hardest thing has been, where ever I have worked, is to get the managers of [staff] to understand that yes there are certain challenges with having a part-timer in your group, for example, but actually the long-term benefits outweigh those challenges," Heyting says. "[Work/life balance] is a work in progress for the firms, but also for the individual."

The 2010 Flexible Work Pulse Survey revealed that during the last five years, there have been minimal changes in the attitudes of managers to flexible working, with 47 per cent of respondents "agreeing" or "strongly agreeing" that they are hindered by leaders in their organisation who find it difficult to change their views about the value of flexible working. In addition, over a quarter of respondents (26%) do not believe that their managers/leaders feel competent to manage flexibility within their work teams.

The survey highlighted the importance of educating managers about the benefits of flexible work and training them so they can appropriately manage flexible work arrangements, if organisations are to reap the benefits that increased flexible working can bring.

According to Gregory, who feels there is a greater acceptance of flexible work, having the support of the leadership group within a firm is critical. "It's all about attitude, about structure and having the managers and the leaders believing it can work," she says. "It has to come right from the top and it really has that affect of cascading down and people accepting that that's the way it is."

Although a balance between work and family life is not a reality for all just yet, as attitudes within the profession change and industry members begin to accept flexible work as the norm, work/life balance will be within reach.