A global immigration law firm focuses on flexibility for its return-to-work policies

New York City-based immigration law firm Fragomen aims for flexibility as it launches its return-to-work policies for its 55 offices across six continents.

“It’s an exciting journey, but we’ve learned along the way that we have to be adaptable,” says Fragomen Chief Operations Officer Vivek Wadhwa. “As we experience new things at the beginning, we learn from our actual implementation and adapt as we’re moving forward.”

Wadhwa says the firm was already thinking about what the return to work would look like as soon as the law firm went fully remote. It developed a 200-member team of senior leaders with daily meetings for several months. The team included the global core team sponsored and overseen by an executive committee representing functions across people, technology, real estate and other stakeholders.

The team focused on several COVID-19-related metrics to drive data analysis and adjusted those metrics as information changed. The team began by looking at the rates of transmission, aiming for less than 1%. Later, it started tracking other variable recommendations from the CDC and global health bodies, like hospitalizations.