How can I motivate associates to get their workload done each month? We operate on a monthly docket. Routinely several associates do not complete their dockets. They run out the door at 5pm and rarely bill more than 120 hours each month. They know the expectation yet they never work up to their full potential.

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How much do you pay them? If you want them to stay later, might need to pay more 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don't mind working late and weekends on my BL salary but honestly would not do it on much less than this.

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A2 my firm is doing that. 2,100 hours required out of the blue (after never having billable requirements, and no credit for meetings, CLEs, DEI just billable work) and paying under $160k a year for third years in NYC. We have huge turnover and people are immensely unhappy. Now we’re pushing back doing the bare minimum instead of billing the 12 hour days we were habitually billing last year. I for one am giving exactly 8 hours a day instead of billing 13 hour days. If my firm wanted to increase the hours, it should’ve done like $30k bonuses for 2,100 hours or sizeable monthly bonuses for each month billed over say 180 hours. As it stands, people are getting more disgruntled, and we keep having meetings and “team building exercises” to fix the huge eff up by management of suddenly creating huge hours requirements for so little pay. I’m sure they think they pay us a lot though. Maybe if you live in Alabama or Mississippi that’s good money, but for NYC that’s a struggle for the hours. Then the firm keeps badtalking everyone who’s leaving not realizing the firm is the problem. You get get hours out of everyone without pissing them off, and suddenly massively increasing the work for the same pay or the same bonus is not the way to go. We’re also having problems recruiting new people because so many past and current associates are writing poor reviews and telling people not to go to the firm.

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Wow…120 per month. Never did that even after taking a week’s vacation. Life must be good for them. The solution that I saw my boss doing: firing them.

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Totally agreed, A1. I’m all for work life balance, but if your associates can’t even meet 120/month — aka billing 6 hours a day for the 20 working days there are in most months — they’re taking advantage of you.

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120 hours per month seems pretty reasonable on a base salary. Work life balance is really important to young associates. Maybe consider a bonus structure based on completion of monthly dockets?

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Monthly bonuses based on hours only payable if monthly dockets are completed on time at the end of each month.

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Pay them more and treat them like adults.

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