Losing employees can leave any leader wondering what to do next. In this episode, hosts Brad and Michael kick off the “asking for a friend” season with a twist—the friend is actually them. They share ByrdAdatto’s journey through unexpected employee turnover and the realization that even a culture-rich workplace is not immune to losing team members. Tune in as they reflect on the emotional and practical challenges of retaining talent, the lessons they learned, and the strategies they considered to support their team. Discover what really works when it comes to staff retention—whether you are asking for yourself, or just asking for a friend.
Listen to the full episode using the player below, or by visiting one of the links below. Contact ByrdAdatto if you have any questions or would like to learn more.
Transcript
*The below transcript has been edited for readability.
Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. Legal issues simplified through real client stories and real world experiences, creating simplicity in 3, 2, 1.
Brad: Welcome back to another episode of the Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host Brad Adatto, my co-host Michael Byrd. Well, Michael, by the way, cheers!
Michael: What?
Brad: We are officially legal drinking aged today. We launched Season 21.
Michael: Well, I’ve known you for a long time, Brad, and something seems wrong with you saying you’re finally legal to be drinking.
Brad: Well, Michael, don’t tell anyone, but I may have had a few cocktails before turning 21.
Michael: Well, you’re whispering Brad. I think anyone that knows you knows that this is not a secret. But I will give you a compliment. Well, hopefully Cameron knows to stop recording for the moment. I have noticed over [00:01:00] the years that you are a much more responsible drinker than you make yourself out to be.
Brad: Michael, that is totally a secret. You’re not supposed to be telling people that. Well, all right, Michael, what is our theme for Season 21?
Michael: Alright, let’s go. As business attorneys for health care practices, we meet a lot of interesting people and learn their amazing stories. Brad, this season’s theme is Asking For A Friend. We will tackle questions that practices are sometimes afraid to ask.
Brad: Yes and audience, this is a safe place. Everyone knows that. If you use these magic proactive words and you say “asking for a friend,” we know it’s not you.
Michael: Yeah, exactly. Brad, we’re in a trust tree. But before we talk about today’s question that we’ll tackle, have you heard about the latest parenting style that is trending on TikTok?
Brad: Absolutely not, but I’m worried [00:02:00] if it’s trending on TikTok.
Michael: Okay. It’s called FAFO Parenting. And this is short for “F around and find out”, and of course, I want us to keep our ratings, so I didn’t expand on the F. As a card carrying Gen Xer, I have a clear impression of what “F around and find out” means, but what do you think it means?
Brad: It kind of goes with, “if you go with it and you continue to provoke me, you will face severe consequences, so don’t push your luck,” would be my kind way of kind of explaining it.
Michael: It’s a very nice way of saying it. Yes. I totally agree. I do. I picture that eighties tough love parenting energy that we grew up in. Kind of like, “if you want to cry, I’ll give you a reason to cry or wipe that look off your face, or I’ll do it for you.”
Brad: Yeah. I did love those. The stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about was definitely one. The other eighties parenting statement I heard [00:03:00] was, “suck it up.” Or, of course, from my Catholic mom, just “offer it up.”
Michael: Well, a couple of other threats from that era were, “wait until your father gets home,” and “as long as you live under my roof, you’ll follow my rules.” And I will say, the father threat; that worked like a charm.
Brad: Yes. No, that tracks with – “wait until your father gets home” was a terrifying threat. It absolutely made me really straighten up and kind of stop whatever I was up to, I stopped immediately. I guess parenting has come full circle now in the sense of does FA and FO mean that parents are bringing back those old school parenting techniques?
Michael: Not exactly. So I was surprised when I read FAFO. I’m not even sure if that’s how you say it. When I read an article about it, it’s doesn’t actually sound quite as harsh as what we kind of, our trigger response was [00:04:00]. The best way I can summarize what FAFO means is it’s kind of a hardcore, edgy way to talk about parenting using a natural consequences style of parenting.
Brad: Okay. Well, first off, I think FAFO is how I always heard to say it. Okay, you can do it whatever you want. But for those who don’t have an army of kids like you do, with your 10 or 15 that you have, what does natural consequences parenting mean?
Michael: Well, that came in vogue sometime in the last 10 years. I remember hearing a lecturer talk about it when Ellex, my daughter, was in elementary school. She’s 16 now, so sometime in that era. It is essentially a style that is not based on punishment for breaking rules, but not rescuing kids from the decisions they make. So, like, if they cheat on a test and get detention, let them experience the pain of that and learn their [00:05:00] lesson that way. They get in an argument with a friend, let them suffer the consequences of that conflict and not intervene.
Brad: I guess I agree with the natural consequence of parenting. Teach your kids right from wrong. Give them the tools to excel in life, but eventually they need to live with their decisions.
Michael: So I read an article and so I’m trusting you, Brad, that you’re not speaking Brad, that it is actually F-A-F-O.
Brad: I believe it is.
Michael: Alright. If I find out otherwise, then…
Brad: Maybe we can ask Cameron, is there a ruling back there? It’s FAFO? Sounds about right. He says sounds about right.
Michael: Okay. All right, FAFO it is. Well, I read the article on why this is the hot thing. So the article was not sure if this became a trending style because it is kind of an overcorrection from the burnout of gentle parenting, which has been the most recent in Vouge style. Or if it’s just a [00:06:00] branding term that they’re using for survival mode. In other words, I’m too tired to be a parent, so let them figure it out. But I’m curious, Brad, how would you label your parenting style?
Brad: I never really thought I had an actual style. I do like to give my kids tools to do well: faith, food, education, and having a stable home. Well, I would say somewhat stable.
Michael: Because I mean, you’re there.
Brad: Yeah. That’s true. I do. They have the burden of carrying me as their father. But I try not to helicopter them. But I’m sure if we had asked our kids that maybe Micah and I give our kids too much advice. How about you?
Michael: It’s a niche style. It’s called Awesome.
Brad: I like that style.
Michael: No, seriously. My kids are so spread out that I probably tried a little bit of everything along the way. My oldest two kids had the 27-year-old version [00:07:00] of me as a dad when they were born, and so I’m sure they inherited some of the old school eighties ways that I learned on parenting. And then I’m sure I’ve evolved over the years. I have tried to stay away from being a helicopter parent and rescuing the kids. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of it sometimes with my youngest because she’s got the whole youngest child energy going and so I don’t feel as strong as I used to.
Brad: I like what you said about your style because what I’m hearing, is I’m a better parent than you. Even if my kids – well, they won’t acknowledge me in public though, but otherwise I’m pretty good.
Michael: Other than that, yes, you’re the best. I think that that’s a perfect transition into our story. Are you ready to jump in?
Brad: Let’s go.
Michael: Alright. So we will start our story with the question, “Asking for a Friend.” I’ll even do it like this, Brad. [00:08:00] “Dear Michael and Brad, I’m asking for a friend. We’ve been struggling with employee turnover. Okay. We’re trying to create an amazing culture at our workplace. We have great benefits and great work-life balance. However, we have lost a string of people in a short period of time. What can we do differently to improve on our employee retention?”
Brad: Well, that’s pretty embarrassing for whoever’s asking that question. There must be really something wrong with – clearly, whoever this person is, they’re probably just bad people all around.
Michael: Brad, slow your roll. There are two major problems with your reaction.
Brad: Wait, I thought this was safe place that I could say whatever I want, just between the two of us talking.
Michael: Well, now there’s three problems. So let me talk about the first one and the one you just brought to life. So the purpose of our season is not to judge people for their questions. [00:09:00] No, we’re not here to do that.
Brad: No judging. Got it.
Michael: And on a related note, saying this is a safe place or a trust tree, does not mean you get to say whatever you want.
Brad: What if I say no offense, and then say something that’s embarrassing to whoever’s asking this stupid question? Is that better?
Michael: No, no, no.
Brad: But I said, no offense.
Michael: I know, I know. You’re still trying to use the trust tree as a shield to say whatever you want. It doesn’t work. But here’s the second problem, and this is going to be kind of embarrassing for you, is that you’re actually making fun of yourself, Brad. Because today’s story is a question that we’re asking because it’s a story about our own journey at Eddo with employee turnover.
Brad: Wait, I take back whatever offending things I said. Sounds like a very good question. And clearly just based on hearing it, you’re the villain of the story, and I think I’m the hero. [00:10:00] Correct?
Michael: Well, I know that in your brain that you’re locked in, so we’ll just move forward. But the point of telling our story is to be vulnerable and recognize that running a business is hard and hopefully set the table for the season were better served talking about common questions or problems, rather than trying to put up a facade.
Brad: There you go. With fancy words again. Let’s keep it simple. I guess at this point we’ll have no choice but to lean in and really share our story. Audience, please do not judge. And if you’re going to judge, please judge Michael and not me.
Michael: Okay. Well, before we talk about our turnover challenges, let’s give some context. You know, I love context.
Brad: Yes, you do.
Michael: I want to talk about how we lead in our parenting style, so to speak with our team.
Brad: I believe in the FA and FO leadership style. [00:11:00]
Michael: Well, that sounds funny, but I think you’re using humor to avoid sharing. Brad. You got to be vulnerable. Let me start. Maybe that’ll get you warmed up. Let me talk about our leadership style and then you can jump in. So as a starting point our kind of focal point, our passion statement that centers why we come to work every day is helping others succeed, and so we try to keep that center to how we lead and how we build the place that we’re going to – that we show up to work every day. And so we’ve invested a ton of time in ourselves because clearly it’s needed. I mean, we left our own devices – would probably go back to eighties parenting. We’ve even built kind of a leadership framework, so to speak, [00:12:00] of what guides us and how we show up with our team. And kind of non-exclusive list is, we show up like we’re, we’re going to be present, we’re going to turn into hard stuff, we’re going to share openly. And so, we’re going to let our team see kind of more than what’s just right in front of them with their job. We’re going to bring empathy to the table and more than anything, try to bring positive energy. Yep.
Brad: All good tenants right there. And to help foster their success, our team success at the firm, we really decide to embrace education of our team, both on, you said, leadership skills and really on the trade skills. Trade skills, obviously meaning how to practice law and work in a law firm. And leadership skills on how to equip all employees with the crucial skills of learning how to make better decisions as a leader and stronger, which [00:13:00] in our minds, help build stronger company culture, ultimately ensuring their long term success. These leadership skills. We have these outside consultants that come in to invest time with our team on leadership development and training to really just improve the employees engagement more than anything else. And obviously our belief, our deep core belief is that we will develop a pipeline or future leaders; more importantly, foster a more adaptable and resilient firm. Which hopefully, ultimately helps retain great leaders.
Michael: Yeah. And we should start by acknowledging this too. Professional services is a hard industry, and it can lead to burnout. It can lead to turnover. This is something that we share with our clients, law firms and health care practices are professional services, and have that same challenge. So Brad, talk about some of the benefits that we’ve implemented here to kind of try to create that positive work-life balance.
Brad: [00:14:00] Yeah. I mean, based on many studies, we’ve looked at some of these top benefits that most employees want is a balance in work and life and ability to grow in a business. And having training and education as part of that.
Michael: I’m sure they want to be paid well too.
Brad: Of course. Yeah, that goes without saying. Which is why our vision is really to create this modern law firm, commits really ensuring relationships and fostering growth through education. As such, for instance, we no longer have billable times for our attorneys and paralegals. We have a four day work week. We spend a lot of time on leadership development, including, we actually have an offsite every single year. We take the entire firm. We shut down really to focus on that education and leadership. We also have a mentor program for all the attorneys and the staff, and all of which is again, for us to develop a really, a cultural centric workplace.
Michael: Well, this is starting to sound like a podcast for recruiting.
Brad: You know, that [00:15:00] was not that hard right after.
Michael: Well so far all we’ve done, Brad, is brag about what we’re proud of, which is the system that we built and what we do to try to have a great place for our employees to work, but now comes the part where we have to be vulnerable.
Brad: This vulnerable, like, do you mean streaking, like I take my clothes off? Is that what that means?
Michael: No, for everyone’s sake, Brad, please keep your clothes on. That’s not what being vulnerable is. In about a three month span, we lost three paralegals and three attorneys and actually lost a couple of team members for different opportunities, so to speak. It felt like every week the hits just kept on coming.
Brad: Yeah. And it’s really hard to lose people, especially when you care about them. And you see these future leaders of the firm and in the health care industry. Obviously for us, I think I can say this, we’re happy [00:16:00] for them personally because almost everyone left us because they had something that they were interested in doing, but it’s crushing to lose them as a colleague.
Michael: Yeah. And when employees start leaving, it feels contagious. The challenging part is that on the surface every employee has their talk track as to why they’re leaving. And it all resonates. Like, you want to be like, oh yeah, I get why you are doing this. And it kind of all falls in the spirit of, it’s not you, it’s me. Better opportunity, different field, starting your own business, going to law school, all these things, they are good things. But yet it’s still happening. You’re losing a lot of people. What’s that common denominator?
Brad: Actually weird is, they actually all told me it was you.
Michael: Oh, that’s weird. They told me the same thing, that it was you.
Brad: [00:17:00] Interesting. But I also agree that once a person leaves, especially someone, we all love having the firm, it feels like a kick to the mouth of your teeth. It starts this impact where others start wondering, you know, they really like that person and they don’t want to see them leave, and then they start thinking about how does it impact them? And so they start thinking like, “Oh no, now that they left, I have to take on more work.” And so overall, now you’re fighting to keep up the morale high as people are walking out the door.
Michael: And I think the personal challenge for business owners, at least for me, and I know for you Brad, is that you want to believe it’s not you because you’re so proud of your business. And so, it’s easy to take their kind of explanation as to why they’re leaving at face value. You want to grab onto that. But we knew also there had to be a connection, right? I mean, [00:18:00] in our circumstance, a lot of the people who left were also close with each other on a personal level.
Brad: Yeah. The idea is, if you’re leaving, maybe I should consider other options. Why do you think they left Michael? Honestly.
Michael: Well, I mean, we can never know for sure. There’s this balance of trying to find the information you need to reflect and improve, and then moving on with the team you have, so that you can go forward with the business. I believe ultimately that this kind of contagious theory does have some merit. I think people start to think and consider what they want when they see someone else leave, and so it opens that door. We as employers are working diligently to close the door by trying to look out for the team that is still there and by finding new team members and kind of creating that harmony again.
Brad: Yeah. I agree with you in the sense of like, that starts being the ask [00:19:00] the questions. Is the grass greener on the other side – that you start seeing that kind of mentality as you said that contagious theory. And finding the right cultural centric person, once a person does leave, finding that replacement that you just mentioned, finding that right cultural centric person. It’s not easy. You’re basically opening your front door, you don’t want any person walking in since you’re trying to protect that team. So unfortunately, it can be a very slow process trying to find that right person to replace or to help grow in that role.
Michael: Yeah. And let’s talk about the silver lining because there is, and I think as an encouragement to other business owners when you go through this, is, it creates an opportunity for us to step back and reevaluate how we do things as a business. Like, what are the things that we can improve on in kind of the new version of our team?
Brad: And we’ve said this before, with change [00:20:00] comes opportunity, and taking a step back and thinking about what else could be true when someone leaves is the first thought. I think that comes to most people’s mind anyway. But as you have time to reflect, you have the opportunity to really confirm what type of business, in our case law firm, would you like to work in? And how then if, once you discover that do you change or do you renew the vows that you’ve already taken that this is actually a great place to be? And what benefits and additional tools can we provide to keep that cultural centric workplace that we want to be in and we want our team to be a part of?
Michael: You’re not asking me to marry you, are you Brad?
Brad: Is this thing on?
Michael: Okay. I heard vow and I was like, okay, alright. Well, and moving on too, there’s things like AI that we’ve gotten to really dive a little deeper into with this new kind of fresh look. And though we were on [00:21:00] a path towards implementing AI into our firm kind of as a tool, the change creates an even bigger environment to look at how else you can kind of support your business, and we have the opportunity to recast our vision or tweak it in a period where you’re understaffed like this.
Brad: Yeah. And when you talk about AI, I always go back to Skynet, and terrified of it. I meant, no, that was a different episode. But yeah, make no mistake, audience members, it is hard to navigate. We’re not saying that this is an easy thing, but we have thankfully rehired all the positions that they did leave and maybe jumping too far to the end, but and we’re rebuilding these teams that with those losses, even with the utilization of additional technology.
Michael: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s easier to record this episode now than it would’ve [00:22:00] been three months ago. Let’s go to break and then when we come back, let’s talk about some legal considerations with employee retention.
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Brad: Welcome back to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd. Now Michael, as we all know, we’re in season 21 and therefore we’re drinking – Oh, no, wait, we’re not drinking and recording a podcast. But in season [00:23:00] 21, we are focused on asking for a friend. In this first episode, we’re really asking ourselves as the friends, to really try to figure out how to set the tone for the season of really being open and honest with these hard questions that sometimes you have to ask for your friend.
Michael: Yeah. And so the quick recap of our story is, we kind of patted ourselves on the back with our strategy for a great culture and great workplace. And then despite that, Brad caused a bunch of people to leave.
Brad: I don’t remember that first part.
Michael: So we really just talked about that impact of doing our best and yet turnover’s going to happen. We’re dealing with people that may not have the same vision as you and that Pandora’s box gets opened and there’s some just energy that we speculate causes others to consider. And so, we really spent the [00:24:00] first part of this just telling that story. And I think really let’s move to talking about strategies that people can employ in their business.
Brad: Yeah. And we’ve talked about this in other shows, but there’s typically the approaches that you can have as you’re looking at it from the carrot or the stick approach on how you retain employees. And obviously since everyone knows you’re the mean one, Michael, I’ll let you talk about the stick approach first, and then I’ll come in as the kind caring individual with most empathy to talk about the carrot approach.
Michael: Oh, nice. So the idea with the stick approach is you’re recruiting employees and how do you create barriers to them leaving. And so if they do wonder there’s an obstacle to actually doing something, and so hopefully that makes them close their own door and stay. And so, the one that’s most popular [00:25:00] is restrictive covenants. That’s includes a lot of things. Non-Competes is what people think of. And there’s a lot happening around the country with non-competes. It’s very state specific. We’ve done an episode talking about – several episodes talking about that.
Brad: And just add into that, that could be trade secrets, that could be confidentiality stuff. So, I mean, there’s lots of things.
Michael: I was going to say is that there’s other restrictive covenants besides non-competes. There’s non-solicitation, and as you said, there’s other things that would make it hard for you to leave if you were going to do so. And these are kind of again, a stick. The other thing you can have is financial related barriers. So maybe that you don’t get your bonus if you leave. You have to be actually employed on the day bonuses are paid to be able to earn your bonus. Or some businesses will implement profit sharing plans or stock options or ownership that goes away [00:26:00] if you’re not still with the company. Again, some companies that invest a heavy in training will require reimbursement if someone leaves. And then oftentimes you’ll see PTO being lost if someone were to leave. Again, you made me be the mean one. But these are all strategies to deal with what are things that’s going to make someone pause if they’re considering their options, because it would cause a little bit of it or a lot of a sacrifice to do so.
Brad: Yeah. So carrot, first thing obviously is always pay them obscene amount of money. That’s easy one. We talked about this already. Building a great culture, being real protective of that great culture and making sure that you’re hiring slow and firing fast to protect that great culture, because that’s a carrot for people who want to be there. So what are the things that you [00:27:00] can add to a culturally centric workplace? How about a four day work week? You know, some people love that, or as some people are still doing ability to work from home. You mentioned PTO, the opposite of that, of having robust PTO, meaning that you have a lot of time to take time off. I mean, obviously some places that have months off if they needed to. Of course, if I join your organization, what’s the career path? How can I advance? What are the leadership skills that you’re looking for that I have opportunities to grow inside of your own place? So career advancement obviously. Is this a kind of organization that I eventually can have ownership in, whether or not it’s ownership in the sense of direct ownership or participation in that ownership with profit sharing. And then of course, finally other bonuses. You mentioned bonuses, but again, incentive compensation where you have certain kickers that come in. All these are great carrots.
Michael: Yeah, these strategies are not perfect and none of them in of themselves will [00:28:00] prevent someone from leaving because people may have any number of reasons why they want to leave, but you’re hoping to have enough of these in place, again, that someone pauses and that they just don’t go down that path of considering where else they might want to work.
Brad: And Michael, pretty quickly, if you can, talk about practical ways an owner can actually create the carrot and or stick.
Michael: Yeah. It’s important to recognize first and foremost that you can’t just verbally decide, okay, I’m going to put this stick in place or even incentives, and so a lot of times you need them in writing in some form of documentation, whether it’s an employment agreement, your employee handbook. And then for some, you might need these defined benefit plans or RISA plans, your ownership documents. It all depends on which stick or carrot we’re talking about. They have the right place to be memorialized so [00:29:00] that it actually has a protective measure to it.
Brad: Yeah. And I think real quick for final thoughts from my perspective, Michael, is just letting you know, feel free to think about which one works best in your mind. I mean, we’ve definitely had clients that said, I hate the idea of the stick or dislike the idea of the carrot. I mean, doesn’t one or the other – you can do both, but it’s the style that works best for you that you want to enforce, or to grant. But Michael, that’s the, almost all the time we have. What’s your final thoughts?
Michael: Well, will you as a business owner, don’t want to be guilty of the FA and FO where you don’t pay attention to how you’re going to lead your team and what your strategy’s going to be for retention? Because I think what you’ll find out is that it’ll even be more painful than the inevitable attrition that’s just going to happen with any business.
Brad: Fair points well guess what, audience members next Wednesday, we are back as we continue on this journey and we’re asking for [00:30:00] a friend, and we’re actually bringing on our friend, Audrey Neff is coming in, and she’s going to join us as we ask the question, everything you were ever afraid to ask about marketing. Thanks again for joining us today. And remember, if you like this episode, please subscribe, make sure to give us a five star rating and share with your friends.
Michael: You can also sign up for the ByrdAdatto newsletter by going to our website at byrdadatto.com.
Outro: ByrdAdatto is providing this podcast as a public service. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast does not constitute legal advice, nor does it establish an attorney-client relationship. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by ByrdAdatto. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please consult with an attorney on your legal issues.
