conveyancers

Five-day working week eluding burnt out conveyancers

The four-day working week is something of a buzzword in the world of business amid a period of refreshed and revamped working practices. In reality, however, it seems that even the five-day working week is proving too short to fit everything in. Are conveyancers are on course to join the Beatles in reaching Eight Days a Week?

The most recent “Diary of a High Street Conveyancer” centred on two key issues:

  1. Distractions and interruptions faced by conveyancers throughout the day. Namely, agents calling and emailing for updates, and clients then doing the same as their agent has given them no answers. Conveyancers therefore do the “proper” work (contract bundles, reviewing contracts, advising clients, etc.) during the evening just to keep pace.
  2. General email volume. The Diary spoke of switching off the laptop at 5pm on a Friday and returning to 200 emails on a Monday morning. This creates a need to clear the email load on a Sunday morning in order to “head into Monday feeling optimistic rather than dreading it”.

This is a concerning, unsettling, and undoubtedly unsustainable situation. Conveyancers have battled one of the busiest periods the property market has ever seen, and the market is refusing to die down – things will eventually take their toll.

Therefore, Today’s Conveyancer set out to see how widespread the High Street Conveyancer’s predicament is. We asked: “Do distractions (unnecessary emails, phone calls and other interruptions) frequently lead to you working in the evenings and/or Sundays?”

The results were striking. Of the 143 respondents to the poll, four in five (78%) conveyancers* said they are working in the evenings and/or Sundays to keep up. Perhaps more concerning is that over half (54%) said they are experiencing burnout.

Speaking to Today’s Conveyancer, Law Society of England and Wales president I. Stephanie Boyce said that it is “no surprise” that so many conveyancers have suffered burnout given the “long hours – including evenings and weekends – that they work to ensure buyers and sellers’ moves can be completed as quickly as legally possible”. She continued:

“There has been no let-up in the volume of work throughout the last two years which has included the pandemic, lockdowns and the stamp duty land tax holiday. They are working under immense pressure with high volumes of emails and calls from estate agents and clients eager to hear progress.”

I. Boyce went on to say that conveyancers “deserve thanks for going above and beyond”, and that they should be able to have a better work/life balance and operate under less intense pressure. She added:

“The enormous pressure that conveyancers are under is nothing new, but it is getting worse. The concern is that many will choose to leave the profession, meaning the situation could become even worse for those that remain.

We would encourage conveyancing solicitors whose wellbeing is suffering to contact LawCare and we would advise all those involved in the transaction to try to manage clients’ expectations as far as possible.”

In effect, conveyancers’ working habits mean that the vast majority are working six day per week; deploying a four-day strategy has never been more difficult. We spoke to Natalie Moore, founder and director of Aconveyancing, a firm that successfully operates with a four-day working week.

Natalie said these challenges are not new. In her experience prior to founding Aconveyancing in 2017, working evenings and weekends was “commonplace – often expected”, adding that “we have lost many good conveyancers over the years as a result of this”. On what her firm does to help control the strain, she said:

“I have to be mindful that, as a business owner, I can’t control the pressure of the job. The fast turn-around times, stressed clients, lots of emails and phone calls – much of this comes with the territory. But I can do my best to both ease the pressure with clients, mainly by keeping an open line of communication – people just want to know what’s going on.

And with regards to my staff, making sure they have the time and headspace to be fully productive in work hours. Our four-day week has been an overwhelmingly popular introduction to the business, and we have seen no dip in productivity as a result. If anything, staff are more united as a team, more focused, and ready to take on the challenges that the job inevitably brings.”

Peter Ambrose, owner and Managing Director of The Partnership, pointed his finger at the SDLT holiday, suggesting its effects are “still casting their long shadow over the lives of conveyancers”. He added that though caseloads are easing for some, this has not translated into a reduction in pressure. On what his firm is doing to help conveyancers manage with deals “becoming more time-consuming than ever”, he said:

“We have taken the following steps to protect our colleagues: increased recruitment efforts; stopped taking on client-referred work; and increased our fees to reduce the number of cases the business needs per lawyer. The goal is to reduce case counts by 8% down to 60 shared between a lawyer and their legal assistant.

As the owner of the business, it is my responsibility to protect both its future by ensuring service standards are not compromised, but also the present, by ensuring the wellbeing of all of my colleagues is protected.”

While it is encouraging to see firms and leaders taking proactive steps, it seems there is no immediate fix. For many conveyancers, a five-day working week remains an elusive dream. It is no wonder that over half of conveyancers are burnt out.

Leah Steele was called to the Bar in 2007, aged 22. 10 years of working 60 to 90-hour weeks, coupled with a sudden and shocking bereavement, led to a case of severe burnout. She now runs Searching for Serenity, helping professionals deal with the effects of burnout. On the results of our poll, she said:

“We have known for years now that conveyancers are working under unsustainable workloads. What concerns me is that this has now become a normalised way of working – to the point that I don’t think many conveyancers understand that they are living in habitualised burnout.

The knock-on effects include an increase in turnaround time and reduced client satisfaction, but it will likely also lead to more conveyancers leaving the industry and experiencing significant ill-health, placing greater pressure on those who remain, negatively impacting the culture and staff retention rates at firms, and an increase of premiums at PII renewal due to the level of compliance issues that naturally arise in such an overstretched group. What’s clear to me is that without substantial intervention, support and policy change, the clock is ticking for the conveyancing industry.”

Elizabeth Rimmer, CEO of LawCare, reinforced the risk of burnout, as well as offering advice on how to avoid it:

“We know from our Life in the Law research that legal professionals are at high risk of burnout. It is very distracting to receive calls and emails all day long – once we are distracted, it can take up to 25 minutes to fully refocus.

We would suggest, if possible, setting some boundaries around this as it is not sustainable to continually work evenings and weekends to catch up. Mark out set time in the day to reply to calls and emails and other time for focused work where you disable your email notifications and turn phones on silent. You can set an out of office to let people know this if necessary so they are aware of what to expect.

We know conveyancers are under a lot of pressure and we would urge anyone struggling to contact us for support on 0800 279 6888, email support@lawcare.org.uk or chat to us online at www.lawcare.org.uk.”

 

*Respondents to our LinkedIn poll

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