Lawyers at Wragge Lawrence Graham have been encouraged to make use of an app which monitors their behaviour and lets them know when they're stressed.
The app, which can be downloaded onto any iPhone or android device, monitors sleep patterns and the emotion in lawyers' voices on the phone. WLG stressed that the content of calls is not monitored, and that contrary to reports in the less reliable parts of the legal press the data collected isn't being sent to the firm. Instead, users receive feedback directly from the app, which tells them when their stress levels are high and when they're not getting enough sleep. So most days basically.
Whether the app will actually help anyone is a moot point. Clearly not all stress is work-related, and the app can't distinguish between lawyers who are dealing with a difficult client and those who have just been asked for the eighth time in 24 hours whether they might be due compensation for mis-sold PPI. And query how helpful it is anyway to be told by your phone when you're stuck at your desk at 4am that you probably should be getting more sleep.
However a recent report by the Law Society showed that stress is endemic in the profession: 96% of lawyers complained that it was impacting their health. Chris Oglethorpe, HR Director at WLG, told RollOnFriday that "although the use of the app is by no means compulsory, we are certainly encouraging people to use it for wellbeing purposes and particularly after the positive feedback we received from a group of our lawyers who kindly volunteered to test it".
Tip Off ROF
The app, which can be downloaded onto any iPhone or android device, monitors sleep patterns and the emotion in lawyers' voices on the phone. WLG stressed that the content of calls is not monitored, and that contrary to reports in the less reliable parts of the legal press the data collected isn't being sent to the firm. Instead, users receive feedback directly from the app, which tells them when their stress levels are high and when they're not getting enough sleep. So most days basically.
Whether the app will actually help anyone is a moot point. Clearly not all stress is work-related, and the app can't distinguish between lawyers who are dealing with a difficult client and those who have just been asked for the eighth time in 24 hours whether they might be due compensation for mis-sold PPI. And query how helpful it is anyway to be told by your phone when you're stuck at your desk at 4am that you probably should be getting more sleep.
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And then my phone called me up to tell me I should have gone to bed six hours ago. |
However a recent report by the Law Society showed that stress is endemic in the profession: 96% of lawyers complained that it was impacting their health. Chris Oglethorpe, HR Director at WLG, told RollOnFriday that "although the use of the app is by no means compulsory, we are certainly encouraging people to use it for wellbeing purposes and particularly after the positive feedback we received from a group of our lawyers who kindly volunteered to test it".