LOWENSTEIN SANDLER — MEMO RE: RETURN TO OFFICE
With the wide availability of highly effective COVID vaccines and dropping infection and hospitalization rates in all of the cities where we have offices, we are pleased to update you on our plans and expectations for a phased return to our offices over the remainder of 2021. Here is our current thinking:
- After Labor Day and through the end of the year, our general expectation is that you are going to be regularly working in one of our offices most of the time – which means typically around 3 or more days per week, unless you obtain approval from your Practice Group Leader or Senior BSG Manager for some other schedule. This expectation might be modified based on client, practice group, or BSG team requirements or if you have job responsibilities or career development opportunities that require you to be in the office more often. As we get closer to September, we’ll provide further guidance on how this will work.
- July and August will be a transition period. Beginning July 6, we welcome and encourage you to return to the office on a voluntary basis a day or two each week, or more if you prefer. Many of our practice groups and BSG teams will be scheduling regular days when people on those teams who are comfortable doing so will be in the office and can collaborate in person. You should not feel obligated to work from the office during this transition period, but we believe it is beneficial to give everyone the opportunity to transition back in a coordinated way before September. Lunch will continue to be “on the firm” through the summer.
- Between now and July 4, we welcome you to try out the office to get reacquainted with working in person again and to test out some of our new technology. In June, we’ll have some scheduled open house days to see your colleagues and, of course, offer food and prizes. Our offices (other than Palo Alto) remain open and you can continue to work from the office as often as you prefer.
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At least until the CDC revises its indoor guidelines, we will continue to limit the number of people in each of our offices to no more than 50 percent of our capacity and will require you to complete our online health questionnaire on each day that you plan to come in. We will periodically be updating our office safety protocols based on evolving CDC guidance and the requirements of state and local authorities. Please make sure to follow all safety protocols when you are in our offices, including social distancing and wearing masks indoors while in public areas (our current protocols may be found here). We will also continue to monitor infection and hospitalization rates in the communities around each of our offices, and we may modify, pause, or reverse these plans from time to time if we believe we need to in order to help keep you safe.
We strongly encourage you to get vaccinated in order to minimize your risk of getting the virus or spreading it to your family, friends and colleagues. However, we are not currently requiring vaccination for you to return to the office. This policy may change.
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None of us could have imagined how effective and productive we could be working remotely when we decided to have our “test” remote work day on Friday, March 13, 2020. While we have served our clients and communities extremely well over these 13+ months, we have certainly missed many of the personal growth and cultural benefits that come from working together in person. At the same time, many of us have seen that working from home can have many benefits and unforeseen challenges.
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Undoubtedly, the world of work has been permanently changed by our experience of the past 13 months. We recognize and accept that our expectations about how and where we work are different than they were on March 12, 2020. Our collective challenge is to chart a course forward that allows us to continue to provide exemplary client service, great career development opportunities for our people, and maintain our strong cultural bonds informed by our core values, while providing our people with greater flexibility to work in environments where they believe they can be most productive. This plan for the second half of 2021 is our first effort at meeting that challenge.
We are eager to see what we learn from this hybrid work style in the second half of the year. This experiment is new for all of us, so please let us know what you think is working and what can be improved. Based on your feedback and our actual experience, we hope to publish more guidance by the end of the year to take us into 2022.
As we have throughout the pandemic, we will continue to communicate as often as possible. We also recognize that, while many of you will be excited about this plan, others will have concerns. Please reach out directly to HR should you have concerns, and submit questions to the link that Mary Monahan will circulate in May.
Thank you for all you are doing to contribute to our firm’s success. Please continue to stay safe and well.
Gary
| Gary M. Wingens Chair and Managing Partner |
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.