“We’re going to know what people care about, and it will drive employee satisfaction,” Delisanti said. “We were a very traditional company. ‘You must be in the office. These are the hours.’ We gave them one day to work from home [before the pandemic]. It worked out nicely for us. When the pandemic hit, everyone was used to it.”

At Phillips Lytle, employees are expected to speak up if a personal interaction violates the law firm’s culture.

“In our office, we constantly have guests and adversaries, and they are in the conference room speaking or treating someone in a way we don’t view as acceptable,” Hogan said. “What we want is a culture where people will not apologize to the person afterwards, ‘I’m sorry you had to endure that.’ We want everyone to feel there is an expectation in the firm to speak up in real time.”

Leveling the field

Corporate culture at Dopkins has been fine-tuned to align the organizational goals with the goals of the team.

Years ago, partners could take time off when they felt it was appropriate based on client responsibilities. Conversely, employees had only a set number of days they could use. The firm adopted self-managed paid time off from managers on up even though critics predicted abuse of the privilege.

“It worked because those people are being measured in so many other respects,” Emmerling said.