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You Don't Have To Go Back To The Office This Year If You Don't Want To At Wilson Sonsini

The firm stresses flexibility moving forward.

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From: Clark, Douglas
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 12:30 PM
To: Clark, Douglas
Subject: Office Re-opening Plans: A Look Ahead

All,

I hope all of you are doing well. We are grateful for your incredibly hard work over the past 15 months under difficult circumstances. The primary purpose of this email is to discuss the firm’s plans for re-opening in a safe and flexible manner this year. I’ll also address some aspects of the Wilson Sonsini workplace of the future. Both topics have been shaped by the diligent efforts of many individuals throughout this pandemic period. We’re on the cusp of beginning a new phase—figuring out how best to work in the future—that also will require hard work by many to help shape our decisions.

Please note that specific details regarding the topics addressed below will be communicated as we move closer to re-opening.

A Brief Look Back

 

We went fully remote on March 17, 2020, a date that is distant, but seems like yesterday in that it was the beginning of what feels like a very, very long week that never really ended. For those of you interested in history, here’s a link to a summary of communications and firm developments during the first year of working remotely. We are grateful to all of you for your incredibly hard work on behalf of our clients and the firm during this period, even as you have dealt with an array of struggles and challenges. As a business, we remained strong as we supported our clients across all departments, and continue to do so today. And, as a community, we supported each other and continue to do so today. We will remain focused on supporting each other as we strive to return to a sense of normality and balance in the coming months.

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The Immediate Future

 

I want to start by reiterating a point that we have made on numerous occasions relating to our return to offices: No one will be required to return to an office during calendar-year 2021. As I mentioned above, we are mindful of the varying personal challenges attendant to working through the pandemic, not all of which are dissipating just because businesses can return to their offices. We ask that you continue to communicate with colleagues and supervisors about how and where you plan to work.

As you know, we recently issued a questionnaire soliciting information about how often each of you would like to come into an office, among other things. Nearly all of you have responded (and we’ll keep circling back to those who have not). Here are some highlights of the questionnaire results:

  • The overall response rate is currently 96 percent, which is fantastic.
  • Nearly one-third of employees want to go back to the office now; the rest would prefer to work remotely until later this year or indefinitely.
  • Longer term, the vast majority of employees want to spend at least one day a week in the office.
  • Nearly two-thirds of attorneys would prefer to eventually spend one to three days per week in the office.

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The data corroborates the need for a flexible, hybrid work environment that permits people to maximize the ability to achieve a work/life balance and to retain some of the efficiency benefits we discovered while we’ve been in a virtual work environment. The data also supports the fact that some people do want to return to the office on a full-time basis. In addition, there are good client service, business development, career development, and cultural reasons to have employees come to the office some of the time. The firm’s challenge, which we’re committed to meeting, is to balance those differing preferences and goals. I’ll address that more fully below.

Now, however, I want to talk about timing. I’ll repeat a caveat that I’m sure you’re used to by now—the timing and extent of re-opening, as well as the experience you can expect while in the office, is subject to local regulation and continued progress toward minimizing the contraction and transmission of COVID-19. From June 1 until September 20, 2021, we will expand the availability and convenience of our U.S. offices to all of our employees in locations where state and local regulations permit such expansion. As additional locations open, we will expand office access in those areas. We’ll monitor density in our various locations and may ask people to limit their attendance from time to time if we near or reach capacity in an office, floor, wing, or hallway. But, aside from those types of necessary adjustments, if you wish to go in, you will be able to. More information on local requirements and office protocols will be provided in separate communications.

We are planning to re-open our U.S. offices with full amenities and services on September 20. Again, that does not mean you will need to come into the office five days a week—or even one, two, three, or four days a week—beginning on that date. We will support remote work and we will have converted some once-assigned offices to hoteling space based on the questionnaire results. In addition, we will focus on providing technology within our offices and in-home offices, as we have over the past 15 months, to support a flexible, hybrid workplace.

The Future

 

We have learned a lot about how we can work during the past year, and many of those lessons will inform what the Wilson Sonsini workplaces of the future will look like and how they’ll be used. We will continue to learn a great deal that will inform our decision-making. There are many topics to explore, including managing a hybrid workforce, client service and business development processes, staffing and recruiting adjustments, and diversity and inclusion goals, among others. To this end, we have formed an Office of the Future Task Force comprised of attorneys and staff from various departments, offices, seniority levels, and administrative functions across the firm. This group will help us think through the questions noted above, as well as new ones that arise as we learn more.

We’ll also continue to solicit support and feedback from our entire firm community as we shape the workplace of the future. We will hold a Town Hall meeting in the coming weeks, and will invite you to submit any questions you may have. Your thoughts, questions, feedback, and support helped us get through the worst of the pandemic and we’re incredibly grateful for that—and for your contributions in the future.

Doug

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