We reported on Friday the feel-good news that accounting firm Johnston Rorke had done a backflip on an earlier partnership decision to deduct 4 days of annual leave from staff for the period of Brisbane flood-induced office closure. We didn’t like the original decision one bit and said as much in an email to the firm. As previously reported, that email was the catalyst for a justified re-think of the decision.
But before you think we’re some kind industry super-power, read on.
In response to Friday’s post, we received the following comment:
Mullins Lawyers in Brisbane, based in the Riverside Centre, also instigated a similar policy to Johnston Rorke, they released to all staff a document which states as follows:
“PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL – TREATMENT OF LEAVE DURING THE OFFICE CLOSURE
The Partners have decided:-
To take the first three and a half days from the 11th to 14th January, that the office was closed during the flood as normal working hours and paid normally. For the last week, being 17th to 21st January:
- Professional staff will be required to take annual leave (the issue of advancing leave where professional staff do not have sufficient leave because of this period of leave will be looked at favourably and to the extent of 5 days is not subject to the Advance Leave Policy).
- Support and management staff can take this period as:
- Five days annual leave;
- Five days leave without pay (to be taken over one or two pay periods); or
- A combination of both”
The sum total of this is that whilst lawyers could go into negative leave if they did not have sufficient leave, support staff who did not have sufficient leave had to take the leave without pay. Many of the support staff have taken temporary weekend jobs over the last few weeks to make up for this loss in pay.
Support staff – the glue that keeps the office together – forced to take second jobs to make up for lost pay. But wait, it gets worse. According to the same anonymous Mullins spy:
The wonderful thing about this policy was that it was announced by the Managing Partner, John Mullins, the day after he returned from a skiing holiday in Japan. A holiday which he left for on Wednesday 12 January. He left for his Japan holiday THE DAY AFTER THE FLOOD HIT, AND HE IS THE MANAGING PARTNER OF THE FIRM. He was absent during the entirety of the office closure.
You might think savvy Mullins Lawyers could have circumvented this agonisingly uncharitable partnership decision by pulling the old “work-from-home” trick.
WRONG!
According to our anonymous Mullins Lawyers spy:
It should also be noted that as Mullins Lawyers do not issue laptops or make off site network access standard for staff, nobody could work from home even if they wanted to. Also, the firm did not have a backup email server in place, so staff could not access work emails for most of the office closure, the email system only came back online on 19 January.
The anonymous spy signed off by inviting Firm Spy assistance:
Any help you can give in getting this situation sorted for the poor support staff who had to take leave without pay would be greatly appreciated.
It was at this point that we took a long hard look at ourselves in the mirror wondering what we were capable of. Turns out that we were staring into one of those novelty carnival mirrors that distort the reflection. We thought, for a second, we were ten-foot tall.
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: A Flood of Bad Publicity
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:11:32 -0500
From: news@firmspy.com
To: jmullins@mullinslaw.com.au, pmullins@mullinslaw.com.auGood morning,
we have been sent an email that was circulated to Mullins Lawyers staff in
the wake of the floods regarding the manner in which absences would be
treated by the firm.Firstly, we should note that it is not too late for you to change the
decision that has been made and to avoid a post by us on the issue.We are asking the firm to comment on the decision to deduct annual leave
from staff forced to remain absent from the firm due to the floods. How
does forcing support staff who had nil annual leave balances to take leave
without pay fit within the values adopted by Mullins Lawyers and published
on its website?John, we also understand that you left to go to Japan the day after the
floods hit. How do you think the decision to flee the country, coupled
with the uncharitable approach to leave mentioned above, fits within the
firm’s values?We again urge you to immediately reconsider the treatment of leave
decision. Our website attracts between 50,000 and 100,000 weekly views,
the majority of which are from within Australia. We will be writing a
feature article on this tomorrow and it will not be good for the firm.Please urgently respond.
Thanks,
Firm Spy
Suffice it to say, nothing was forthcoming from a kimono-clad John Mullins. Mullins Lawyers views itself as being focused on “building enduring relationships with [its] people” and counts the following among the firm’s “Values”:
Our people
Our firm is our people. It is about attracting and retaining good people. We seek to inspire loyalty by valuing our people and treating them well.Business of law
We develop our business with good management, vision and innovation. We succeed by focusing on our people and our clients.
Would you be “inspired” by the Mullins Lawyers holiday treatment?
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Your anonymous source has misinformed you on a few key issues here. I am a Mullins support staff person and not one of my workmates has had to work weekends. The firm does issue laptops to lawyers who request one and offsite network access is always available to any lawyer who wants it. We were only without our email for 4 working days during the flood closure. Our MP did not go overseas until Saturday 15 January and then only went after ensuring that our flood recovery was under control and that no staff members or their families had suffered during the floods. This firm’s treatment of its staff is second to none. You should tell your incompetent spy to check their facts!
Your firm spy is 100% correct. How is being forced to take leave without pay deemed ‘not suffering’ due to the floods. The firm is widely known in the Brisbane legal market for treating it’s employees badly. They are currently conducting a witch hunt for the firm spy in true Mullins Lawyers form. Why does the published comment read like it’s been drafted by the HR Manager?
@Mullins Lawyers Employee (aka Mullins Lawyers Partner or PR Stooge) Puhleease! You’re seriously insulting the intelligence of Firmspy and its readers if you thought we’d be fooled for a second as to the authenticity of your scripted comment.
It’s funny that the HR employee above (or is that you John?) tries to discredit a few non-key facts while mentioning nothing of the real issue of forced leave / leave without pay. how disgraceful. I pity every employee in that office.
In respect of another Brisbane firm, there were staff updates publicly on the Carter Newell website throughout the floods, one of which was to the effect that their IT systems were up and running so professional staff were working from home while support staff remained on annual leave. It seems those staff updates have since been removed from the CN site’s ‘news’ section. Would be interesting to see what the end result of that was. My firm, whose offices were also affected (as was just about everyone in the Brisbane CBD), was just closed: lawyers did what work was possible from home (when server came back online); support staff just stayed home; no annual leave or pay docked for anyone. That’s the way it should be.
I have heard of these Mullins’ arrangements as well, there are many around Brisbane city scratching their heads at the nerve of these jokers. Kudos to Firmspy for nailing them.