Friday Conversation with Danielle Ayres, Employment Partner at Gorvins

Danielle and I discussed how lockdown and remote working might benefit women making applications for flexible and/or part time working after maternity leave in the future.

You can find out more about Danielle here.

Podcast host Hannah Beko is a self-employed lawyer, coach and creator of the Lawyers Business Mastermind™ (the place for entrepreneurial lawyers to grow).

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hello and welcome to another Friday Conversation. Today I'm joined by Danielle Ayres who is an employment partner at Gorvins Solicitors in Stockport. So hello Danielle, thank you for joining me. Come and introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 0:13

Hi Hannah, it's good to be here. As you said, I'm an employment solicitor. I work at Gorvins in Stockport. I deal with employers and employees equally, so advise employers on everyday HR issues from drafting up contracts through to dealing with grievances, disciplinaries, all the way through to, again, being instructed in tribunal claims for employers as well, and also the flip side to that for employees, so dealing with everything that comes with the employment relationship for them as well, including settlement agreements. And I specialise in pregnancy and maternity discrimination cases and family friendly rights. So I am involved with a good few organisations. I volunteer for an organisation called Pregnant Then Screwed. I run their legal advice line. So the vast majority of my time really is taking up with those sorts of matters and helping out working parents, mainly working mums as well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

Do you know, I've got two questions that have just sprung to mind from that. So have you been very, very busy in this period? Extremely, yes. And so because you mentioned there about the family related rights and things like that, has that come up a lot with lockdown?

SPEAKER_01: 1:30

Yeah, massively. You know, one thing I didn't say, I just described myself personally. kind of professionally then but I am a working mum myself I've got two young boys and they're seven and nine so we're obviously dealing with juggle of being at home and working and also everything that comes with them being here so cook chef cleaner teacher as well and and that's the sort of things that's the sort of inquiries that we're getting at the minute in relation to those with child care responsibilities and especially now that the government have made changes to the furlough scheme and they're trying to get people back into work but the nurseries and schools are still shut that's obviously causing an awful lot of issues as to you know how working parents are supposed to cope and what they're supposed to do so we've been dealing with an awful lot of inquiries about that and the options that are available to working parents and there's on the flip side to that as well you know speaking to employers who really do want to support their staff and want to support their employees um but need them back in work um and what they can do to kind of to kind of help them with the juggle So that's been massive for us, or me, doing what I do. And as well with people that are pregnant in the workplace, obviously pregnant employees were put into a vulnerable category. So they were put in the at-risk category pretty early on during lockdown. So again, it was dealing with, right, well, for employers, what do we do if we've got an employee that's pregnant? Are they not allowed in work? Do we have to make adjustments? And the flip side to that as well, for people who were saying, look, they're trying to get me to into work had speaking to people from you know that works in the large supermarkets on on checkouts um dealing with nhs frontline staff who are being told you know get yourselves into work we need you in and when the government was saying hang on a minute you know take it easy you know adhere to social distancing principles as much as you can so that side of things has been has been really really busy for us

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

Yeah, I do hear similar from other employment lawyers. And I was doing some work with some HR people this week as well. And I guess for you as well, because you wear the two hats, like you said, you act for employers and employees. You know, I do feel for people that, you know, in the HR position as well, because they obviously need the business to run. They need staff in for the business to survive. But at the same time, they have got staff who are either poorly or very worried about their health as well.

SPEAKER_01: 3:59

Yeah, that's exactly it. I think, you know, as well as the kind of the childcare issues that we're experiencing, we've obviously had to experience with everything else that comes with this lockdown and the impact of the pandemic for businesses and for employees as well. So usually when we're dealing with, you know, redundancies or layoffs, an employee can feel, you know, pretty kind of backed into a corner and, you know, losing my job and it's the employer's decision that's prompted that. Whereas at this minute in time, it's actually a decision that the employers are being forced into as well. So we've had discussions with our employer clients that we don't usually have as, you know, I'm losing staff here that I don't want to be losing. I've ploughed a lot of time, a lot of effort into these people, but we just can't afford to keep them on. So it's a really, really difficult time. And with everything else that the government has thrown at us in relation to the changes that have come in, you know, we are quite used to the law changing pretty quickly and pretty rapidly in an employment sense. You know, we do tend to have updates every year and changes that do come into force, but, you know, this has really kept... employment lawyers and like you say HR people on their toes because the changes have been made week on week generally intent you know kind of come back to the employment relationship such as furlough and you know this as I said the school's not opening but people being asked to go back into work so it's been a really strange time and an extremely busy one as well for us.

SPEAKER_00: 5:36

absolutely and i really don't know how how you all do it in employment law with keeping up with all these changes as you said you're used to things changing pretty rapidly which i confess is why i became a property lawyer because we're still relying on the 1925 act yeah i don't have to follow a lot but um i i don't envy you all with everything you've had to keep up with and you know the lack of guidance sometimes that comes out with it and not sure how to interpret it and what's right well

SPEAKER_01: 6:02

that's exactly it i think i've been to a couple of chats that you've had um you know before and and a couple of events that you've spoken at where you've said about solicitors liking to be in control and we like to sound like we know what we're talking about all the time and have that element of kind of OCD and we pride ourselves on being right. But it's been hard for us because we've been saying these are the changes that the government have said in their announcements and in the briefings and this is the advice that we'll give you. However, we're still waiting for the guidance. So we can't tell you for sure that is the answer and then the guidance comes out and quite often goes completely against what what you've given the advice on so then you're going back and giving you know other advice as well and particularly with this now this flexible furlough scheme that they've brought in none of us could have envisaged what rishi can never say his name probably rishi sunak was going to say um in bringing the furlough scheme you know flexible furlough forward we all thought that furlough was going to be open until October we knew that there was going to be changes but you know that's meant that actually people have had to deal with things a bit more rapidly than they would have wanted to in in getting staff on furlough if that's something that they envisage for the latter part of this year so yeah it's been it has been a you know it's been a whirlwind for us this last few weeks I think.

SPEAKER_00: 7:24

Absolutely now you mentioned I mean I know that you do work with the Pregnant Then Screwed and similar other organizations like that sort of helping with um you know women's rights in terms of after they've had children or or as you say pregnant and i i guess things like flexible working and remote working and part-time and things come up a lot for you in that role do you think this is going to change things do you think covid now and the fact that we've all worked from home whereas in the past i know law firms have been saying oh your job can't be done remotely it can't be done flexibly it can't service the client you can't work a team like that do you think it's going to be different after this

SPEAKER_01: 8:01

I really hope so I really hope so I can't see you're right it does come up a lot and we you know we help people to submit flexible working requests and hand you know deal with them as they go through the flexible working kind of procedure that you have you know the meetings and the appeals um and and quite often you do find that they just say you know we we don't have anyone working from home or we don't have the facilities for you to work from home or we can't you know we just can't put it into place so for employers that had previously said that and even for employers that were a bit stick in the mud you know we don't want to be doing this and setting the ways and I think with the legal profession you know sometimes we are kind of commandeered by the old guard aren't we in terms of the way that we do stuff and you know again pretty set in our ways as to the way that we see things the way that we envisage things should be carried out that will have given employers a push and it will have shown them that there are many benefits to flexible working that perhaps whilst they were being told that there were those benefits before they hadn't actually realised them. So I'm hoping, I am hoping that this will be the push that we need to go towards a more kind of flexible working environment for more people than before.

SPEAKER_00: 9:19

Oh, absolutely. Yes, I agree with you. I do hope it, as you say, it's about, we've told employers for years that it will work and it will be a good thing for productivity and happiness and retention and all those sorts of things. But actually, if they can see it for themselves now, then maybe that's the change that we needed.

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Yeah, I think people keep saying, don't they, that we're not working from home in the simplest sense at the minute. We're working from home during a pandemic. You know, many of us, if we were working from home, I don't work on a Wednesday but I regularly pick up work on a Wednesday and so work from home and if we work in an open plan office at Gorvins so if we have chunky work to do such as witness statements or drafting pleadings then we do work from home we have the ability to do that anyway but when you work from home usually it's quiet the phone doesn't ring and you're able to kind of really get on with the job at hand but at the minute obviously as I said we're juggling everything aren't we we're juggling you know the kids being here and the phone ringing and dealing with things like admin that we wouldn't usually you know have to do remotely so even when I'm working from home my secretary's in the office so I can say you know print this out get it in the post um so so I think you know it will be kind of you know even saying that while you have got employees that are home and they are being productive now actually they could be more productive than they're being um so even if it's working now it could actually work better for you um once we get back to normal life

SPEAKER_00: 10:48

that that's exactly what what i've been saying to people you know anecdotally i'm hearing that productivity is up i know it's not been easy for people you know exactly as you say they're either new to remote working so the systems aren't 100% because you need quite a good it setup really to be able to work remotely and you've got the homeschooling or the very young children who are not at nursery and you've got sharing the space with your partners you don't have proper you know space to put your work in but yet there's still this high level of productivity so i think you're right imagine what it would be like when things are a Definitely. I hope so. Definitely. So you touched on it there about how much you would normally work from home, sort of outside of lockdown. You would work from home sometimes?

SPEAKER_01: 11:32

Yeah. I mean, our managing partner is quite big on flexible working and making work work for you. So as I said, we work in an open plan office and we do have meeting rooms, but there's a lot of us. So often those meeting rooms are booked up. So if we have chunky jobs to do, we do it from home we're all set up our RIT is already set up for us to do that and work remotely and so that's something that I'm pretty kind of okay with that already to be honest I think this will push us into doing that a bit more but yeah I work four days a week I don't work on a Wednesday but just given you know as many part-timers do we do end up doing work on our days off and so I do work remotely anyway on a Wednesday but other than that it is only if we have those chunky jobs we don't tend to say right well you work from home Monday and Tuesday but I was even having a chat with my boss a couple of weeks back and I said I can see on the back of this that there are going to be quite a lot of flexible working requests that go in even at Gorvins who were open to it before because people are just going to see the sense in you know I don't need to be paying petrol to get back into work four days a week when I can actually do my job from home saying that I have missed the office environment I have missed and I think I wouldn't like to do this all the time you know work from home all the time because I do think that there is a lot that can be gained from you being there with your colleagues and with your peers and I've certainly missed that during the lockdown so I think you know it's getting that happy medium isn't it of working from home enough to then you know and being in the office as well for me. Yeah

SPEAKER_00: 13:18

Yeah, I think that that's what I've heard universally, to be honest, whether they're junior people or senior people. Nobody's saying I want to be at home 100% of the time that they're all saying I definitely miss the office and my colleagues and I want to go in. But yes, I can definitely see that there'll be times when I want to work from home maybe a bit more than I did before. So I think you're not alone there. I think everybody's saying the same thing.

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

yeah

SPEAKER_00: 13:41

yeah but um it will be interesting because like you said i mean you listed some of the things there you know saving money on petrol of course we're saving the environment if we're not driving in um being there to you know as a lot of people want to to do the odd drop off at school or pick up or go to sports day or go to an assembly or watch a swimming class you know all the things that that traditionally people can't do unless they book a holiday which is is really silly i think but they'll be able to do if they can work from home a

SPEAKER_01: 14:10

Even a lot of employers will see that they can cut overheads as well. There's no point in having four floors of an office building and paying the rent on that if actually all you need is two. So I think that, again, employers will see the benefit to it as well.

SPEAKER_00: 14:27

Yes, I agree. Although what could be funny is what could go the other way. I don't know if you've seen, obviously, that Slater and Gordon in London are shutting their office down and everyone will work from home. You could have such a backlash that the employers say, well, get rid of the offices and the employees are saying, no, we really want to

SPEAKER_01: 14:42

come in. Yeah, I think so, yeah. I think it's just weighing it up, isn't it, and getting that happy medium. Yes. It's going to be, yeah, it's going to be interesting, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 14:53

It is, definitely. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So what have been your highs and lows of your lockdown experience?

SPEAKER_01: 15:01

I think you've kind of touched on some of the highs. For me, it's been spending time with the family and, you know, being there. Usually we drop our kids off at before school club and sometimes they're the last ones to be picked up from after school club as well, which, you know, with the mum guilt and everything else makes you feel awful. And I think that, you know, even just we sit down for tea together every night we are tea it gives us the chance to have a chat with them while the computers are turned off and that's just something that we've never been able to do before um so you know just be able to be in that moment with them and and and spend some time with them we've all purchased bikes so we've been you know we've been out on bike rides and explored kind of we we live um north manchester way so press which and there's some really lovely areas of you know green belt areas around here that we've just never ventured into um you know we've seen we've seen stags we've seen deer we've seen you know we've seen that many bits of wildlife as well that's just just amazing um so it's it's just allowed me as i said my kids are nine and seven just to kind of you know breathe them in a bit and and get to know them a bit more which sounds silly doesn't it um with your own children but you know sitting there and doing the lessons with them and seeing the way that they approach their work it's been a real eye opener for me um and it's been really lovely you know i think we're never going to get this sort of time back again with our kids and with you know don't forget husband as well with him as well um but you know i i am really enjoying it i'm really enjoying being able to spend you know more more time with them there have been the lows you know i think anyone that paints a perfect picture which i just made it sound like then it would be telling would be telling a lie you know we've had the days where they've done absolutely nothing but our with each other and you've played referee from the time they've got up to the time they've gone to bed. But I think we were talking just before we started recording, weren't we, about the weather's been really kind to us and we've been able to get out more. So there have been more positives that have come out of it for me, I think, rather than negatives. The negatives are there. It's been very, very hard for me to separate work from home life. I've got to the point now where on a Friday evening, I have to put everything away in a cupboard that belongs to work just so that it's away. And then I have the weekends off because I think that they are all just merging into one for me. You know, whereas, you know, you do usually leave the office at half five, six o'clock and come home. And, you know, I'm not logging off until really late at night. I'm logging back on really early in the morning. And so it's kind of like they're not segregated for me. And there is almost that element of worry about work as well, that we are extremely busy, but that could drop off at any time. If they want us to go back into the office, what am I gonna do with the kids? So it is, I think for me, there's been a lot of uncertainty in this time, no matter what side of the fence you're on. And as an employment lawyer, as I've said, we speak to people in every stage. So we speak to people that are on furlough, that know they're gonna go back as soon as businesses open up, spoke to people on furlough that might be made redundant we've spoken to people that have been made redundant we're speaking to businesses who you know who don't know you know what's going to happen week on week off so and and that's been the same for me it's it's that worry it's that nagging bit of uncertainty that's that's in the background um that's kind of been the lows for me. And as I said, not being able to kind of separate work from home life as well. But generally, as I said, the positives have outweighed those.

SPEAKER_00: 18:51

Yes. Yeah. I know someone was asking me this week, how do I think the legal industry will change as a result of this pandemic and of lockdown? And that was one of the things I said, you know, not just that, yes, we've seen that people are more productive at home. I mean, I have been saying that for a number of years to people, but this will prove it, you know, the productivity at home. But the thing that's really interesting for me is the first point you made there, which is for once, for many lawyers, they've had the chance to really spend more time with their children. Yes, at the moment, we can't go out and we're not walking them to school and things like that. But I wonder if people will see that that's something they've never done before. But actually, it really enhances their lives, their happiness, their sense of well-being. And it's something they want to keep doing into the future that perhaps they've not really considered before.

SPEAKER_01: 19:38

Yeah I think so definitely for me I mean I do I'm lucky because I do as I said have Wednesdays off so I do at least get one day where I drop the kids off at school and I'm there at quarter past three to pick them up as well but you know just sitting down for tea at night it's been I use that in every example that I give to people that because we never do it We never all sit down together for tea. You know, the kids sometimes eat after school. My mum picks them up a couple of days a week as well for us. So they eat at my mum's. So we very rarely, other than weekends, sit down and eat together. So it's been, you know, every single day we've had at least, you know, I mean, worry again comes into it, doesn't it? Because of how much screen time they're having. And that's just sometimes just got to be done. You've got to let them have their iPad or the PlayStation while you get stuff done. But, you know, that worry's there, but it's just given us that bit of time just to spend as a family um and to have you know again you know we are living with each of the 24 7 so it seems silly to say to have a chat but it does mean that you know the laptop's away for me the computers are away for them and we're sat there eating and speaking which is like it's a bit alien almost in the day because we're just busy aren't we you know regardless of work as well our kids play football they swim I play netball my husband plays football all that's been taken out of well for us so you know we're not getting up on a Saturday and I'm taking one kid somewhere and husband's taking one son elsewhere you know that rush has been taken out of our lives as well as the work side of it which I just it's been lovely it's been really

SPEAKER_00: 21:17

oh so what's one of your biggest biggest things that you've learned about yourself or about work in in lockdown that you think others might learn from um

SPEAKER_01: 21:29

I've learned, I mean, it's difficult because we always go on about self-care, don't we? And spending time on us as well as spending time on the children. And I think that that's something I've not really been able to do during lockdown because there's always been a room to tidy, pots to clean, a meal to make. But at the same time, it's allowed me just to kind of feel a lot happier in what we've got and what we have here. We know now that the kids are extremely happy at home and and it's it's given me that sense of actually do you know what we are doing something right um you know they're happy to be here they're happy to be at home you know we we can we can sort of um it sounds a bit silly and it's hard to explain but you always have this sense don't you that you're not you're not doing enough as a parent and you're not um you know you're at work too much or you're not and actually that's not the case our kids are really happy they're doing really well at school um you know they've attacked their schoolwork in such a way that we've seen that, you know, they are willing to kind of dedicate some time to that as well. So it's given me a bit of a sense of, you know, what you are doing enough, if that makes sense. So it's made me a lot more content, I think. But as well, you know, it's knowing that I can carry out work from home. There was always a sense of, oh gosh, once we all go home, you know, we are still pretty paper heavy in my department as well. And it's given me that sense of being able to say, do you know what, I could do my job from home if I wanted to. And made me think, as I said, I've already said this to my boss, so it's nothing he doesn't know that maybe when we get back to work, it will be a case of, you know, can I work a couple of days from home so I can drop the kids off and pick them up. And I know that's not going to impact on my work even though they'll be home at half past three I'll still be able to log back on and do the work that I can do so yeah I think for us it will change things for the positive once things go back to normal

SPEAKER_00: 23:37

oh that's fantastic I'm so pleased to hear it and I love your point you made there about you know that we feel like we're doing a good job we're doing okay I think that's a really great thing for you to have discovered yeah I really like that and I hope other people who listen to this might be able to realise something similar as well so that's fantastic so thank you so much for coming to join me Danielle

SPEAKER_01: 24:02

no thanks for having me

SPEAKER_00: 24:03

on