That maybe your ideal – IT’S NOT MINE!

The truth is that staff members (good ones) know when the workload warrants those expectations of salary that include managing your own workload and investing the time of weekends and holidays and when is acceptable to not to.

Lets be somewhat realistic, in that if the article doesn’t hit the nail right on the head, why wouldn’t every employee be an hourly one? Salary is a relationship between employer and employee, that provides the added benefit of to the employee of paid time off, and I don’t know of an employer that scrutinizes a salaried employees paid time off in the same way that some employees do when it comes to be expected to invest more of themselves into a job that’s future monitory opportunities likely rests in that same productivity by the employee.

In short, if its a relief to get paid when your sick, on vacation, have a personal issue or the like, why should it be a burden to have to invest time outside of ones “normal working hours”. Cant both scenarios be accepted as reality.

Why should the employer be alone in the commitment to do what needs to be done in order for the team to succeed, and not the entire team assume the responsibility to fulfill workload requirements. It is the essence of salary and hiring staff.

Consider the alternative in an employer hiring an additional member of the staff that increases productivity, but has now increased payroll. Any employer knows that the bottom line has now been affected and the costs of doing business has increased and that this new addition has possibly determined the companies ability to satisfy merit raises during that teams next merit evaluation. To the point, your raise went to hire a new person, and maybe this one will invest what is necessary on the weekends and holidays so that employee number one is no longer needed. Now everyone gets their raise again!

Of course, employers cant have and I don’t think do have unrealistic expectations, and tine with your family is the highest of priorities, it sure is mine. I often think about how the time that I do spend with them, would be affected by me losing my job and having to get two jobs to make ends meet. My best path for success is the one that makes the company that I work for the most profitable, if you don’t believe that, just ask everyone that is currently being laid off and is having a hard time find a job.

One of the best articles that I have read in a long time!

I’m wondering where a woman with a small child would fit into your proposed model? (Or a man who wanted to be equally involved in parenting for that matter?) Should a woman quit her firm job until her child is 18? Or maybe just disappear from the legal job market altogether, to make room for the folks who are willing to follow your approach? Or, most likely, just not have children at all?

I concede that in this down economy, when there is an overabundance of jobs, the only way a woman with a child might be able to succeed in the legal market is to follow your approach. But as soon as the economy (and legal market) picks up, watch out. Considering that over 50% of law school graduates are women, and considering the level of involvement that men take in raising their children these days, my prediction is that firms that expect their attorneys to buy in to your approach will find themselves dangerously short-staffed.