Case study: Boosting retention

CASE STUDY :: BOOSTING RETENTION

Creative casting
Flexible scheduling helps
Smart Legal Assistance retain staff

by Carla Waldemar

“ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE” was a pronouncement Cindie Smart absorbed as a theater major in college. Yet in real life, suitable roles aren?t all that easy to come by, so after graduation, she worked 15 years as a paralegal for a large law firm.

Proving Shakespeare right, it landed her in the courtroom, where she soon discovered she loved every moment of the drama.

?Theater has prepared me to stage-manage ? to direct trials, to put on a show ? and I found I was very good at it. I understood what it took,? she says. She considered becoming a lawyer ? for about 15 minutes, but quickly realized it would require years and years of understudying before she?d land the juicy roles.

In 1987 she struck out on her own and launched Smart Legal Assistance, a paralegal service. ?Theater training had taught me that an audience misses so much unless you emphasize and repeat it. So my forte was figuring out what the audience needed to see, how evidence could best be presented and understood.

?You can?t change a reality, but it?s how you deal with that reality that makes a difference,? she says, adding that for her company the ?audience? is the jury.

Her first client, who represented a pharmaceutical company, asked her to coordinate its cases ? to act, as she has ever after, as an independent resource to assist both the law firm and the corporation it represents. That initial assignment was formidable enough to require her to hire 10 people. Today she oversees 40 employees and counting.

It?s her choice of how she manages that staff that?s been pivotal in the success of the company, she says, which translates to the success of her clients (by now, national and international) and the document depository services it offers. The key to her is flexibility.

No 9 to 5
?I hated it working where people had to be in their chairs from 9 to 5,? Smart explains her decision.

Instead, her force signs on for up to a 40-hour week, working the hours and days of their choice between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., simply specifying ahead of time what those hours will be. If a father needs to go home for a spell to fix his kids? lunch, fine. Baby sick, or impromptu vacation? Just let her know.

Yet Smart has yet to be caught short-handed. ?It?s never happened. People change their plans to accommodate each other. Because flex time is so important to them, they cover for each other. And when they need to be away, there?s no penalty, no guilt. We?re respectful of each other?s needs and time, and it?s created extraordinary staff loyalty. We?ll all go the extra mile.?

Says operations manager Erika Kocur, a six-year employee, “I?m a single parent with seven children. In lots of jobs, if a kid is sick, what do you do? You can only miss so many days. Here, if someone?s sick, it?s ?Fine. Go home.? Your job isn?t jeopardized. I work 15 hours a week anytime between 8 and 6, arranged ahead of time. I can come and go as long as the schedule reflects that, and it makes me really appreciate the job, and the boss. She?s so compassionate.?

People like Kocur represent the firm?s regulars. The company also has occasional part-timers, who put in 15 to 20 hours a week ? mostly students and people involved in theater.

At the outset, these flex-staffers must dedicate a specified number of hours for training. ?This can be between semesters or between shows,? Smart says. ?Then, we assign them to what we call the ?deadly boring? work that changes little from stint to stint ? a comfort job they?re happy to do in bursts, not for life, which frees up the regular staff from the dull stuff.? And for students who sign on, it helps build their resumes.

It spices up the office, too, Smart says. ?We all benefit because they add interest. For instance, last summer we had teenagers from the Children?s Theater working, and they?d do little performances at lunch, teach dances. They got one shy Hmong woman on our staff tap dancing and singing!

?Then there?s a 22-year-old working on her Ph.D. who comes in at various stages of her career, between studying Arabic or working in Kenya. These interesting people help us all learn about other people,? Smart says.

She never advertises for help. She did it once and it resulted in too many calls to weed through. Instead, word of mouth works well, because potential staffers already have learned what to expect.

Smart also turns to the Brian Coyle Center to reach out to newly arrived immigrants. ?They may not know much English,? she says, ?But they?re bright ? doctors, pilots, bankers ? and they can read numbers. We place them in the document depository and they?re very pleased, and very adept.?

The job ?acts as a stepping stone, and I expect and nurture that,? she says. ?We benefit from the cultural exchange.?

It?s not without challenges, she says, adding that men from some African nations, for instance, ?can be sexist, to the point where my employees will tell me, ?This is an issue.? I call a meeting and say, ?Here?s the deal: Federal and state laws prohibit this, and, regardless, I don?t allow that here.? We have a discussion, and at the end, we?ve become a little closer, gained mutual respect.

?Again, it?s the cultural exchange. And once again, it comes down to respecting (and that goes both ways) everything from what food people put in the microwave to women?s dress. Men may tell me, ?That dress isn?t appropriate.? I say, ?Yes it is, here.? ?

More sources
Another source of employees is the welfare-to-work program, dealing with those who have had no experience in the work force. ?After we began, we realized we were making assumptions. They needed training in things that may have appeared elementary, like ?If you sign up for 10 o?clock, be here at 10, not 11. That?s not what flexibility here means.?

?Theater folks are another great resource, and I have allegiance to them,? Smart says. ?They?re energetic, bright and open-minded, and the learning curve is low for many of these deadly boring tasks. They?re quick studies for this kind of work, and flex time is key: Where else can they work for a couple of weeks between shows??

Some who have gone on to work in New York or Washington, D.C. are available for projects in those cities.

Zach Curtis, artistic director of the Paul Bunyan Theater, a summer troupe, and frequent Twin Cities performer, can?t say enough good things about Smart?s actor-friendly hiring practices: ?Her flexible scheduling is a really nice, and unusual, policy which acknowledges that people also have other things to do in their lives. She?s so good about dealing with people?s schedules, welcoming us, where a ?normal? day job cannot be our priority. Setting our own schedules, we come here when we want to come here,? he says.

But does this work well for clients, too? According to attorney Paul Hannah of Kelly & Berens in Minneapolis: ?Cindie doesn?t hire just legal assistants ? rather, people with an extraordinary wealth of experience: people smart enough to recognize good and bad documents; people who can force some order on a completely chaotic process. They?re self-starters.

?They really put some energy into the document depository, which works for the benefit of everybody,? he says. ?They bring a dynamic process to the project, which allows you, the client, to organize documents in a way that makes sense for you, rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all system.?

[contact] Erica Kocuk, Smart Legal Assistance, 612.378.5707. Paul Hannah, Kelly & Berens: 612.349.6171; ph*****@************ns.com; www.kellyandberens.com. Cindie Smart, Smart Legal Assistance: 612.340.1030. Zach Curtis, Smart Legal Assistance: 612.378.5707