When you’re busy, how do you prioritise your work?

On the face of it, this seems such a simple question, but it’s actually the most fundamental, and potentially complicated, one that we have to address in our working lives.

For those who manage staff it becomes even more complex because it’s not just your own work you have to prioritise but that of perhaps many individuals. Then you get into the realms of management skills, delegation, trust and experience.

Advisers can see which specialists are accepting the work

In the conveyancing world, that question of workflow, resource and priority is being addressed every single day at the moment. Prioritisation has been absolutely vital during the past couple of years in order to complete the work received.

Recent figures from Search Acumen show the level of transactions conveyancers have been working on. In the fourth quarter last year, more than 300,000 transactions were registered across over 4,000 firms.

The latter is a significant number of firms and the service received by advisers and their clients will have differed greatly.

Pre-Covid trends

In the decade or so before the pandemic, the number of conveyancing firms active in this space was falling steadily. There were very good reasons for this — conveyancing had become more specialist in nature; those firms that were dipping in and out struggled to compete and service effectively and efficiently; and it was obvious to us as a distributor that the specialist players were in a far better position to provide the level of service required. They had the experience, resources and focus.

The average firm registered a record 76 completed transactions during the last quarter of 2021

It perhaps will not have escaped your notice that the fundamentals noted above haven’t really changed, and yet we have seen a growing number of firms active in conveyancing, particularly since the start of the pandemic. That has much to do with an increase in activity levels, but the specialists have needed to cut their cloth accordingly during that period.

Managing large numbers of staff working remotely has not been easy, and stamp duty deadlines piled on more pressure with the need to hit certain completion dates being all encompassing.

Business that would normally have been accepted by the bigger specialists needed to find a different home as they looked to service the inflows they were already receiving. Cases, and the amount that could be taken, were (quite rightly) prioritised.

We have seen a growing number of firms active in conveyancing

Hence business went to other solicitors, the number of firms active in conveyancing rose, and the average firm registered a record 76 completed transactions during the last quarter of 2021.

Using a platform

That trend may well continue for the short term. But one of the benefits of advisers being involved in providing conveyancing advice is they can effectively prioritise their client. By using a platform such as ours, they can see the specialist firms that are accepting the work and can ensure their client goes to a full-time conveyancer dedicated to completing that work within the desired timescale.

Prioritisation has been vital during the past couple of years in order to complete the work received

It may not be their ‘usual’ firm, but it will be a highly experienced one that is committed to meeting our high service standards. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be on the panel.

Overall, it is about priorities. The adviser prioritises the provision of conveyancing advice rather than letting the client go elsewhere; we prioritise the firms that are able to accept and deal with the work; and the conveyancer prioritises the work required by the client. By doing this, everyone should get the right outcome.

Mark Snape is chief executive of Broker Conveyancing