I have recently helped a candidate secure an offer for a new role.
Well done I hear you say, "thats your job"
This placement however represents what I am seeing a lot of at the moment in terms of firms backtracking on hybrid working opportunities.
This is a candidate who joined a firm a couple of years ago with an agreement that they would be able to work from home 2 days a week.
All was going well, a promotion had been achieved recently, targets were being exceeded consistently and there were no issues or desire to explore opportunities.
That was until recently when the firm decided that they were changing their approach to hybrid working and it was now moving towards getting everyone back full time in the office.
So the person did what several other lawyers who I have spoken to recently are looking to do. They decided to move to another good firm down the road that can offer them flexibility.
If you have never offered hybrid working and have always been office based than there is no problem, everyone knows where they stand and are presumably happy working in that way.
However, if you have previously sold yourself as a flexible employer and are now backtracking, you will likely have a pretty major retention issue on your hands as people seek more flexible alternatives and become disillusioned by broken promises.
There are companies out there that have no plans to change. They have seen flexible and hybrid working works and have adapted their culture to embrace it.
Those firms will continue to recruit the lawyers from the firms that are pulling back on the flexibility front.