How Making a Small Change Can Make a Big Difference
Changing landscape
Gone are the days of the 1-to-1 or 1-to-3 ratio of Secretaries to Fee Earners. We’re now more likely to see 1-to-7 or even 1-to-10, and barely a week goes by without a firm announcing the centralisation of support resources, or support restructuring.
The role of support services is constantly changing, as is often seen in drives for efficiency of back office support, specialist support teams, lower cost locations, outsourcing, in-sourcing, near-shoring … there’s a lot of change!
But it’s not the only change. Whereas in the past the majority of delegated work was dictated, support teams now perform a wider array of tasks; it’s not just dictation. In order to work in an agile way, it’s vital to have the ability to react quickly to bottlenecks of work and seamlessly move resources (either internal or outsourced) to where they’re needed most.
The problem is that often there aren’t the tools in place to capture, deliver, manage and report on these tasks. There isn’t the same level of clarity or flexibility on other processes that you gained previously by using digital dictation.
Many firms (or, more appropriately, many Secretarial Managers) have recognised this problem, but most have struggled to put in place an efficient solution.
BigHand Now, a task delegation workflow tool, is currently making a huge difference to how agile a law firm is, ensuring that support resources available to Fee Earners are used in the best way possible. Think of BigHand Now as the glue between Fee Earners and the various support teams whom they rely on.
Right work to the right place at the right time
Without a task delegation workflow tool, it is difficult to know who is working on what and the status of each task. It is also hard to know on a macro level how much time it takes to complete certain types of tasks and whether the most capable person has been assigned. Conversely, is work that can easily be completed at a lower cost going to the right resource? With BigHand Now, firms can identify how long each task takes and the most efficient resource to manage it based on skill, cost and capacity.
Secretarial Managers can see at a glance if one staff member is extremely busy while someone else down the hall or in another office is available to take on more work. This type of information allows Managers to seamlessly shift work from staff who are overwhelmed to others who have more capacity.
Small change. Big impact.
BigHand Now is designed to enable Secretarial Managers to understand work backlogs more clearly and to make quick decisions to ensure the firm is making the best use of the support teams available to them.
It’s a tool used to capture all delegated tasks, including dictated tasks, into one unified dashboard. From here the type of work, due date, expected time to complete the task and priority of task can be set and captured digitally. This allows firms to have structure and visibility. Work can be quickly transferred between locations and working groups so backlogs can be cleared. This is where firms start to realise the impact of marginal gains. A small change to working processes can allow for a more streamlined organisation, improved client service and increased ROI.
Get in touch today for more information on how BigHand can help your organisation.
0207 940 5900
Customer Success Story
Prior to the roll-out of BigHand Now, national law firm Browne Jacobson LLP were requesting tasks through various methods, with no visibility of the status of the task. This resulted in a lot of requests for, and questions about, progress updates.
With BigHand Now, all tasks are now submitted into one system with the right instructions and sent to the right team for processing. The benefits of this method include quicker turnaround times, full visibility by users of the status of tasks at any given time, no wasted time clarifying what needs to be done, and no lost or forgotten tasks.
Karen Walker, Head of Operations at Browne Jacobson, commented:
“We are delighted with the collaborative approach BigHand has taken to understand our business drivers and facilitate this strategic change. As a long-term partner, we consider BigHand an integral part of our business growth.”