Leader Insight with Judi Bonham, Managing Director at WSP Solicitors
“Legal services unlikely to return to business as normal, as we knew it.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for everyone and the word normal has been used throughout these times, not always constructively. For our staff and clients at WSP Solicitors, normal now means something very different from what it did in early 2020, and as a business we have had to adapt to meet this.
Over the last 20 months everyone in the business has had to learn skillsets outside of their usual roles – given the progress we have made with technology, innovation and new ways of combining working remotely and in person. This has identified new efficiencies within the legal services we provide, and allowed us to improve the services and accessibility to them for our clients.
WSP Solicitors will need to continue to be strategically focused on these continuing developments and the key challenge of ensuring our people are not missing out on social connection, the feeling of being part of WSP, as well as nurture and maintain a sense of teamwork and inclusion.
There are external recruitment challenges across the sector, which has further highlighted the importance of building and nurturing internal talent in the business, leading to an overhaul of our staff development programmes.
It is likely that there will be future demand for developing immersive technologies such as VR and AR experiences, as well as looking closer at Block Chain Technology in terms of contracts and transactions.
Despite the technological advances that the pandemic has accelerated, leadership is essentially human; without judgement, compassion and authenticity a business cannot be successful. Our business is our people and we need to be alive to their needs. Technology can make our processes more efficient, but it cannot make us better colleagues, employees or leaders.
This applies to our people too and not just leaders. We all need to continually learn and there is a responsibility for us as a business to support learning across all levels for our staff.
Finally, being ‘nimble’ is a phrase I am hearing a lot. The ability to keep up or even ahead of changes by being aware of trends and not ‘waiting to see’ what is happening. Being brave to try developments on a small scale to see how they work before rolling out if successful has been important. Fostering a culture where we can sustain continuous improvement and development of our services, processes, technologies and teams is paramount.
