Part-Time Professionals – A Secret Weapon for Managing Growth

An untapped talent pool of working moms is helping small businesses effectively manage the delicate balancing act of growth. 

By: Flexforce Professionals

Dena Roudybush, the founder and CEO of Compliance Counsel, knew her business was at a critical juncture.  The company she launched in 2005 to assist consumers at risk of defaulting on their mortgages and losing their homes, had doubled in size and was still barreling ahead.  The business, specializing in negotiation of loan modifications, was so successful that recently she had been turning away business unable to handle the workload.  Her clients had begun asking for support to undertake their bankruptcy cases, but neither Dena nor her staff attorney had the capacity to absorb the cases given the mountain of business they were already managing.  She had thought about hiring another full-time attorney, but she and her staff had prided themselves on their efficiency and productivity and knew another attorney was too much – the business was not there yet.  Plus, Dena did not have time to train a new attorney or manage the project of building the infrastructure to grow a bankruptcy practice.

A light bulb went on when Dena met Flexforce Professionals at a Fairfax County Chamber meeting in January.  We shared with her the potential of an untapped talent pool we work with everyday – a pool of exceptional seasoned professionals, mostly moms, who prefer to work on a part-time basis to balance work and family.  Flexforce was founded by three professional women with the mission of unlocking the value of these resources by crafting win-win matches of part-time talent to part-time business needs and bringing cost-effective, out-of-the box flexible staffing options to local firms.

We worked with Dena to find Liz, an attorney with 10 years of experience in litigation and bankruptcy law.  She had stepped away from the full-time workforce in 2002 to raise kids but with both her boys now in high school, was looking to re-enter the workforce on a part-time basis.  The match was ideal.  Liz came on board at Compliance Counsel two days a week, picked up all the bankruptcy cases, built the foundation upon which to grow the bankruptcy practice, and assists with litigation of some of the core business cases.  Where Compliance Counsel could have hired a full-time attorney for $100K+ a year who may have struggled to achieve enough billable hours to cover his or her costs, they hired Liz at a fraction of the cost, she was billable and profitable almost immediately, and the company’s growth continues in a healthy way.

The Challenge of Growth

Compliance Counsel faced one of the most common challenges that small businesses encounter – and one that sinks many – the delicate balancing act of GROWTH.  The Small Business Association estimates that between 50% and 60% of new businesses fail within five years with over one third failing within the first two years.  Many of these failures are attributed to companies mismanaging growth in one of three ways. 

• Over-expansion – companies become too eager to try to demonstrate revenue growth for stakeholders and take on added overhead and debt to build the staff and infrastructure to handle anticipated growth.  They might hire additional full-time sales people, a new partner, or create a robust back-office.  When the volume does not materialize, they are left with a huge financial burden and the complex task of downsizing.
• Stifling growth – companies, afraid to bring on additional staff or resources, end up unable to handle market demand, miss market opportunities and lose out to competitors. 
• Loss of control – in the wake of growth, companies fail to put the required controls, processes and infrastructure in place and run wildly aground. 

These growth issues are especially prevalent in service industries where human resources account for the largest portion of overhead costs and pose sticky challenges when trying to adjust staff to changing market demands.  The cost of an employee, including employer taxes, unemployment, workers compensation, insurance, benefits, vacation, sick days and training can run between 40% to 50% of an employee’s compensation, not to mention the cost of productivity losses associated with employee turnover or downsizing. 

The Secret Weapon

What many businesses are discovering, however, is the power of highly-qualified, part-time professionals in enabling measured growth.  These resources are a new secret weapon providing the flexibility and liquidity to grow staff incrementally based on market demands and bringing targeted expertise to bear on an as-needed basis when new growth issues arise.  Especially in this economy with the uncertain pace of recovery, part-time professionals provide a low-risk, low-cost alternative to getting needed talent.

Why is this just now catching on?  To a great extent, it is because the recession has forced companies to think in more aggressive and creative ways about how to increase productivity and decrease costs to stay alive.  But is it also because the modern part-time talent pool has changed and it is breaking the long-held stigma that part-time means “lower skilled”, “lacking commitment and loyalty”, or “hard to retain.”

The talent pool we work with is miles from this stigma.  First and foremost, they are highly qualified with significant education and valued skills.  All of our candidates have ten or more years of solid professional experience in business areas such as finance and accounting, sales and marketing, PR, HR, legal, administration, web/graphic design, technical writing, etc. etc.  Many have advanced degrees or certificates such as MBA’s, JD’s, CPA’s, PMP’s.  They have solid references and strong track records.

Second, they really want to work part-time and are excited about and grateful for the opportunity to do so.  They are not the recession’s under-employed who are settling for part-time jobs until a full-time ones comes along.  They are not the restless temp or job hopper whose primary focus is the next hourly job.  They are not trying to fill a resume with new experience or use a job as a stepping stone to a bigger and better one.  They are high achievers in search of meaningful work that they can balance with the demands of family.  They understand the compensation and career tradeoffs they are making in pursuing part-time employment, but to them the risks and tradeoffs are worth it and they are willing to work at affordable rates and forgo benefits in exchange for the flexibility.

Finally, they are a great value.  As Dena puts is, “Seasoned part-time professionals offer a unique hiring opportunity for professional businesses.  This solution allowed our firm to retain a high-caliber attorney without the anticipated budget constraints of a full-time attorney with the same level of experience.  The value and worth Liz brings to our firm, because of her education and experience, is worth far more than the two days she is in our office.”

Incremental Staffing & On-Demand Expertise

So how can part-time professionals help businesses to grow at the right pace and avoid the pitfalls of too much, too little, or out-of-control growth?

For fast growing companies where the current infrastructure and staff are insufficient to handle increasing volumes, adding seasoned part-time professionals may create just the right amount of additional capacity to handle new customers, backfill support processes, or relieve overburdened employees and keep up with demand.  The power of part-time professionals is that they allow companies to hire cautiously in a measured way to support revenue growth without over expanding.

This type of incremental staffing was the right solution for Mark Madigan, the CEO of IT Cadre, a rapidly growing systems engineering and software development company in Ashburn, VA.  With IT Cadre’s success, Mark knew he was going to need additional help to build the pipeline but was unsure whether the need could support an additional full-time resource.  Initially, he posted a full-time business development job with a salary range in the six figures, but instead hired a part-time marketing professional, Linda, for 20 hours a week at a fraction of the cost.  Linda was just re-entering the workforce after 10 years off to raise her children.  She had over 14 years of technology sales experience with prominent technology companies as well as executive account management experience for federal government contracts.  She was the perfect fit.  “The best thing about hiring Linda was that she was effective from Day 1.  Even though she had taken time off from the workplace, given her experience level and skills she immediately had an impact in getting new customers to see the value of our services. I did not have to spend time training her or getting her up to speed, which resulted in a significant cost-savings,” says Madigan.   The good news is that Linda is at a point in her life where she is also willing to grow her hours with the job to a full-time role when the time is right.

The other benefit of part-time professional staffing is that businesses can insert required expertise, on-demand to address specific growth issues.  Almost every business owner can share a story of how growth almost derailed his or her business because they did not have the proper controls, resources, or expertise in place to manage new challenges that rapid growth creates.  Many owners just anxiously close their eyes and hope the success of the business will overcome the chaos.  But out-of-control growth can have devastating impacts on a company including as customer flight, financial disarray, or costly legal mistakes.   

One small government consulting firm that we worked with, for example, came dangerously close to wrecking what they had worked so hard for three years to build.  Having grown from one to 15 consultants, but with no one but the CEO to focus on the day-to-day accounting and finances, they had allowed invoices to go uncollected for 6 months, draining cash and ultimately delaying paychecks.  This oversight threatened to jeopardize their most important asset – their consultants.  Fortunately they recognized the critical nature of the issue and hired an experienced part-time accountant who, working 3 days a week, records all accounting transactions, monitors cash flow, rides herd over collections, and provides financial reports to management on a routine basis.

Conclusion

Part-time professionals are a smart business choice and a competitive advantage for many small high-growth companies.  They possess the educational backgrounds, experiences, and skills to hit the ground running on day one, but offer a more affordable and less risky way of staffing incrementally to meet demand without over expanding.  Hiring seasoned and knowledgeable part-time professionals, whether it is for bookkeeping, sales, customer service, or office management, can provide just the right amount of capacity or expertise a company needs to make sure its house is in order and equipped to handle whatever growth throws its way. 

If you are a growing business, think about the pressure points your business is feeling and whether a part-time professional might be the right staffing solution to alleviate the strain and position your company for healthy growth.  Don’t overlook this secret weapon.

About Flexforce Professionals

Flexforce Professionals, LLC is a niche recruiting and staffing company focused exclusively on seasoned part-time business professionals.  Part of our mission is to unlock the value of a largely untapped pool of talented working moms who prefer to work on a part-time basis to help balance work and family.

 For further information about Flexforce, please visit www.flexforceprofessionals.com 

For further information about this article, please contact:

Gwenn Rosener, Co-Founder, Flexforce Professionals      

 Tel: 571-269-4980         gwenn@flexforceprofessionals.com