Untapped talent
With the recent wave restructuring, chambers are in danger of ignoring their most valuable assets, their clerks, says Suzanne Cosgrave
February 23, 2001 at 07:03 PM
4 minute read
So is the size of your chambers' staff training and development budget?
Since I was appointed chambers director, from the NHS, at Wilberforce Chambers in 1998, every post of chief executive has been filled from outside clerking, apart from the single exception (to my knowledge) of the recent appointment at Falcon Chambers.
The debate at my chambers following the announcement of the new Matrix Chambers ended with the assumption that the new chief executive post 'will go to someone from outside again'.
Why is there this assumption? Why is it that, even though there is an extraordinary level of talented and highly motivated individuals working as clerks in barristers' chambers in London and elsewhere, they are little recognised as an obvious source for the new chief executive posts that are being created?
It would be an unconscionable assumption that all board level posts in any other organisation are filled by people from not only outside the company but also the sector.
I have a real desire to reverse the trend. I am not suggesting that there is no role for people without a clerking background in the new managerial structures of chambers. New ideas, new ways of working and, perhaps most importantly, new insights gained from other areas are all good reasons to bring staff in at all levels from other businesses.
Does a lack of training investment explain why we assume that these posts will be filled in this way? Where is the training and development effort focused on building tomorrow's managers, marketeers and chambers' directors?
Many (perhaps even most) clerks undertake the various elements of training now available and promoted by the Institute of Barristers Clerks (IBC). I have nothing but good to say about these courses, but they do not replace the need for planned and chambers-focused training.
Chambers are increasingly getting to grips with the need to document their plans for the next one, two or three years. Documenting the plans is not enough; they need to be subjected to a
systematic analysis. One of the logical consequences of a business plan is a 'training needs analysis'; identifying the candidate and skills you need over the coming years.
Organisations that fail to invest in training are gambling on the loyalty of current staff and running the risk of becoming progressively less attractive for new staff. Looking at those currently in the clerking profession you might think this is a reasonable gamble – but is it?
Clerking has changed out of all recognition in the timescale that has taken a junior clerk to move up to – if they are lucky – second junior. Those in their late twenties or early thirties have probably already been clerking for 10-15 years. When they joined as school leavers they had certain expectations: there would eventually be an element of commission-based pay in their remuneration package by the time they reached second junior; although it would take years, they could aspire to be a senior clerk running the whole clerking function; the Bar would always be here and they virtually had a job for life.
You could forgive those who have already committed 10-15 years to clerking for feeling some resentment that most of those certainties have been undermined in the recent past, if not dispensed with altogether, and that so little has been done by their employers to prepare them for the new world.
For some, the final straw must be the growing sense that clerking is not the obvious training ground for future chief executives.
There is a buoyant job market and barristers' clerks are very employable. They are also the chambers' most valuable employees. That many clerks have not yet grasped just how transferable their negotiating, organisational and customer relationship management skills are, is fortunate for the Bar, but it means it is still not too late to invest in training and development of your clerks.
Failing to develop clerks will not help you retain the best – they are the ones best able and most likely to leave simply because you have not told them how much you value them.
If your succession plan and training strategy does not seek to develop your clerks for the post of chief executive you have failed to identify your greatest threat yet.
Suzanne Cosgrave is chambers director
at Wilberforce Chambers.
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