Adjusting Your Office Hours with Tyson Mutrux

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

In this podcast episode, Tyson shares insights into his firm and the recently revised office hours. The firm shifted from team-specific hours to a more unified approach, introducing one mandatory 15-minute office hour from 12:45 pm to 1:00 pm, and two optional slots at 8:45 am and 3:45 pm, all in central time. 

This office hour change, aims to simplify scheduling, foster better communication, and improve productivity. 

Episode Highlights:

• 01:12 Tyson explains the new approach with mandatory and optional office hours
• 03:09 Tyson details the new office hours structure, providing flexibility and opportunities for communication within the firm
• 05:17 The positive impact of the changes to office hours and encourages feedback from the listeners

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Transcripts: Adjusting Your Office Hours with Tyson Mutrux

Tyson (00:01.005)
Hey, Tyson here with another Saturday episode. I'm going to do something this week and Becca's going to kill me because we use these podcasts. We use the video portion on YouTube and on social media. And Becca's going to kill me because I'm catching up because I was sick and I had a response to a motion for summary judgment due. So I have set up a studio in the back of my truck while my daughter's playing basketball and I'm recording this episode. But.

I actually think it's pretty good setup to be honest with you. I've got a camera mounted on my sunroof and I've got a whole setup back here. So it's actually pretty cozy. I actually like it quite a bit. Lighting is pretty good too. So sorry, Becca. But this week, I actually want to talk about office hours and I want to give an update to our office hours. For those of you that have listened the past…

Office hours is something that we've implemented and I really, really like it, but we've adjusted. And I want to talk about the adjustments because just because you decide to do something doesn't mean that you always stick to that thing. Adjusting and making things better is really important. Getting feedback from people is really, really important too. So that's, we've made some adjustments based on what our people have told us. But before I get to that though, I want to remind everyone to, if you want to get,

maximum, minimum, minimum time. If you want to get Stage 1 absolutely free just for being a listener, all you have to do is text us the just the words Stage 1, text that 2 -314 -501 -9260. So just text us Stage 1 -314 -501 -9260 and that will be texted out to you right away.

It comes back to you instantly, I think. So text us and you'll get that pretty quick. And also, if you have anything that you want me to cover, text me. I'd love to hear from you. We get a lot of great text messages, a lot of feedback from people. So really appreciate it. All right. So let's get down to it. So let me talk about what we have done when it comes to office hours. Before, what we had done is we had…

Tyson (02:20.97)
different, each team had their own set of office hours. And I thought this was a great idea, right? I thought that this was a brilliant plan and that, so everyone knows that each person has a different, or each team has their own set of office hours. And so you know when to show up to them. It just didn't work out because there's so many different sets of office hours. There's so many different teams. People found it kind of confusing, even though we had a whole list of everything, people found it really cumbersome. And,

There was a camaraderie part of it that people missed out on. They wanted to be able to kind of talk to each other, hang out with each other. So what we have done is we've adjusted that and we now have one office hour. And this is not an hour, by the way, it's 15 minutes, but 12 .45 PM central time is it's for 15 minutes. So from 12 .45 until one is mandatory office hours is what we call mandatory office hours.

Plus we've got two sets of optional office hours and we want people to attend at least one of these where you can attend all three if you want, but all you do is turn your light on and we use clicks. You can be red if you're not available, green if you're available. Yeah, do not disturb as well, which is when you're like really dug in and you want to get some work done. So we've got those as an option. And so we've got our normal huddle at 8 .30 AM.

And right afterwards, so we want to be done with that by 8 .45, it goes right into our first optional office hour, 8 .45 to 9. And then you have your mandatory at 12 .45 to 1. And then we have another set at 3 .45 to 4. Those are all central time. And so that allows a little bit more flexibility. It gives people the ability to communicate throughout the day. It also allows people to communicate.

about something that maybe happened early or mid afternoon that needs to be conveyed to someone before the next day. And it gives the teams a lot more flexibility when it comes to communications. And it also, I will tell you, it has also, for the people that think that they've got to, or not think, that they really want that connection to other people, it really allows them to have that because you've now got…

Tyson (04:46.791)
three different ways, three different times to communicate with people. Plus that's in addition to the daily huddle and in addition to other meetings that we have and other daily meetings that we have between the teams. So it does, there's a continuity piece that is really there and people don't feel as confined to, oh, these are my office hours. These are, we're kind of stuck with these office hours and we can't do anything about it. So this also with the 1245 block,

you know that everyone is going to be available every single day. And there might be an exception every now and then, but you know that they're there to, they're going to be available. And this is the time where no one should be putting anything over these. So there's no one scheduling lunches over these. There's no phone calls, no meetings, no court appearances. Cause let's be honest. I mean, how many court appearances do you actually have between the 12 and one o 'clock hour? Has it happened before?

To me, yes, but maybe I can probably count on three fingers how many times it's happened. So it is a pretty safe hour and it's been pretty good. People, by the way, we had some resistance at the beginning of the office hours. Now people love it, right? People love the office hours because they can actually get work done. And it was funny because at one of our quarterly meetings, I was getting a little bit pushed back. And this was early on, I think, one of the, I think it was maybe.

maybe third quarter of last year. And I just showed them the data. I said, you can tell me all you want about it, but let me show you the data. You're getting more tasks done. We're selling more cases and we're just doing a better job. So it is one of those things where they can't convince me otherwise at this point, but it doesn't matter. They don't have to. We've got buy -in from the entire team, which is pretty awesome. But I want to give everyone an update on that. Hopefully you've gotten something from this episode. If you did…

Text me 314 -501 -9260. I would love to hear from you and get some of your ideas. I would really, really appreciate it. I always love hearing from you every single week and I just love doing these Saturday's shows. So if you've got more things you want me to cover, I would love to do it. But until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.