You have an Office Manager, but is it time to also hire a Human Resources Manager? How do you know? Is this a full time or part-time position? Can you move an existing employee into this role? These are some of the basic questions you should ask as the size of the team in your organization grows.

1. Start with an Office Manager.
The first administrative position a small firm requires is that of an Office Manager. This person is typically responsible for everything from facilities management to hiring, and just about everything in- between. When a firm is small, (5 – 20 total staff,) that makes sense, and generally works well. As a firm grows in scale however, additional challenges and complications naturally occur. The Office Manager who previously handled it all may now find herself spread too thin. Out of necessity and in order to manage additional responsibilities, the time formerly spent recruiting, interviewing, hiring and managing day to day people- issues is reduced, and eventually the quality of internal communication and team morale gradually starts to break down. At this point your Office Manager needs help and this is the time to look at hiring a Human Resources Professional.

2. Then hire an HR Professional (Part Time or Full Time?)
At one time in my career, I worked for a large corporation in an office comprised of 50 people. We had a Human Resources Professional on site. During one of many re-organizations, the decision was made to eliminate this position in favor of an online HR FAQ’s and forms system. They actually took the “Human” out of Human Resources! This was a classic mistake, but not particularly surprising. When a business is looking to reduce expenses, the non-revenue generating positions are critically evaluated first, and too often “Human Resources” doesn’t survive the cut. This is largely because we tend to think the responsibilities of the Human Resources manager involve little more than hiring and firing. When done right, however, the job of an HR Professional is absolutely a full time job for any business with 35 or more employees (and a part-time position for a business with 20 – 35 employees.)Most law firm Office Managers do not possess the formal education, training or work experience of a Human Resources professional. Instead, as firms grow and mature, and their roles evolve, they endeavor to perform these duties to the best of their ability. We have found that HR Professionals possess a unique skills set, and that it really is quite different from the skills and strengths of a General Manager.Recruiting, screening, interviewing, reference-checking and hiring can and should be a time-consuming process when done properly. Too often, busy Office Managers rush this process in order to fill positions quickly. As a result, time and time again, we experience the negative outcomes of hastily filling positions with the wrong people who have not been properly selected and vetted.In addition to recruiting, screening and interviewing new candidates for hire, the Human Resource Professional fulfills several essential functions including but not limited to:• The voice of reason and objective mediator when conflicts between employees arise;• Serving as a confidante to members of the Executive leadership team• The “performance police” ensuring annual performance reviews occur on time and that the criteria used to conduct them is standardized and objective, as well as keeping thorough documentation of written warnings and above and beyond recognition;

• The ombudsman for complaints potentially involving concerns over the risk of retaliation;
• The enforcer of employee rights and responsibilities
• The protector of the organization against unfounded and defensible claims
• The keeper of labor department required records and state specific compliance

Should you fill this part-time or full time position with someone already within the organization? Be careful – – this is ill advised. The HR Professional’s position requires such a high degree of objectivity, the relationships and friendships formed between employees already within the firm will likely lead to biases whether real or perceived. If your employees don’t think the person in the HR role “likes” them or “favors” others, the person in the HR role will be doomed from the start. It is best to bring in someone from outside the organization who has no pre-existing relationships within the firm. It is very rare that someone from within can successfully overcome perceptions of bias and truly earn the essential trust of the team.

A healthy relationship between an Office Manager and the HR Professional should be one of synergy such that together they may make better, more informed management decisions always seeking to develop existing employees while seeking to recruit high-caliber, top talent as your firm grows.
Without exception, the wrong hires will cost the firm far more in the long run. Investing in a skilled HR Professional is one of the best ways to reduce the high costs of turnover, ensure top performance by the right people, and raise the bar for long- term professionalism within your organization.

3. Next it’s time for a dedicated Trainer. As your firm grows, so will the need for a dedicated, full time trainer. When the size of your team approaches 50 people, the Office Manager and HR Professional will already be at maximum capacity in their roles. To expect either of them to develop, coordinate and deliver proper training, in addition to what they already do, is a lot to ask. When performed right, the role of a trainer is that of a teacher, coach and mentor. Trainers are not solely there to conduct new hire training, but should continuously be developing and delivering refresher training modules for existing employees relative to case management and client relations techniques. When recruiting for a trainer, look for someone with a teaching or training background. Use due care when promoting from within, unless that person already possesses the requisite skills set. Training doesn’t have to be tedious, it should be engaging, creative and fun. Finally, the role of the trainer should work in conjunction with the HR Professional and Office Manager to:

• Distinguish training issues from performance Issues
• Develop a course curriculum to close the gaps
• Deliver the information in an interesting and relevant format.

A few weeks ago while watching TV, I caught part of an old Charlie Rose show where he interviews interesting guests one on one at a round table. His guest that night was Tom Clancy, who sadly, recently passed away at the age of 66. As you may know, Clancy was the critically acclaimed, enormously successful author of such popular works such as The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and many other literary works.

What struck me was how down to earth Clancy seemed for such a successful guy. He was a straight talker, but had an appealing, calm and direct way of answering questions. His demeanor was not at all in-your face, and his simple choice of words was perfect. (Not surprising I suppose, given his occupation.)

Charlie asked if he ever suffered from writer’s block, to which Clancy, while smiling, rather dismissively replied;

“Writer’s block is a term writers invented for when they didn’t feel like going to work. Everyone feels like that sometimes. Sometimes you just wake up and don’t feel like working that day. You just have to get up, get ready, and go to work.”

In the days that followed, I pondered this and thought, can it really be that simple? All this time I thought “writer’s block” was a malady from which only the most tortured novelists and authors of various works suffered. Something to which I surely couldn’t relate. Yet when Clancy put it in these terms, he removed all the mystery from the concept!

This got me thinking back twenty years ago, to how I perceived lawyers in general, before I went to law school. I can recall utterly being in awe of the lawyers with whom I worked. It was as if they belonged to an exclusive club and were privy to all kinds of magical secrets and knowledge that laypeople were not. I was incredibly impressed at how much of the law they must have had to memorize and be able to recall. I was convinced that they had larger brains and the ability to retain far more information than average people. I wanted so badly to know what they knew, but I knew I wasn’t a genius and wasn’t sure I had what it took to be a part of this club.

Now that I have been a lawyer for 13 years, looking back, I find it so amusing how I invented and attached such superhuman abilities to those who chose the legal profession – something which I now realize, for me, mostly came down to simple discipline and hard work!

Don’t get me wrong, it is certainly not my intention to over-simplify the other requisite traits my colleagues in the legal profession possess. Certainly, we all have an appreciation of logic, reading comprehension, and the ability to persuade, but most of all, “we got up, got ready, and went to work.”

What we didn’t know, we made it our business to learn. (We had to – there was only one final exam for each course, and no one wanted to take a Bar Exam more than once!) However, this lesson holds true regardless of the occupations we choose. If you want to learn anything new, find your inner-discipline, and go to work learning it. Treat it as though there will be a final exam at the end of the course, even if there is not. Work at it as though you have just invested three years in graduate school and have massive student loans to pay back. (Now that’s a motivator!)

Anyone can learn something new, and it’s never too late. Whether it’s taking a dance class, learning Italian, or going to law school, don’t allow your own subversive self-talk to build up roadblocks that prevent you from going after it.

Finishing law school and passing two Bar Exams was the hardest thing I ever did. Because of that, it was also the most rewarding (so far.)

Charlie Rose ended the interview by asking Clancy “Are you satisfied with your body of work?” to which Clancy replied “I never want to be satisfied. Satisfaction is the enemy of progress.”

In that spirit, I’d like to encourage you all to keep seeking out new challenges and setting new goals. With them you will find true rewards that may lead to even more mysterious and rewarding possibilities!

The only thing that is truly consistent is change!

Charles Darwin said that it is not the strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent, it is the one most responsive to change. While I do not buy in to all of Darwin’s theories, I think this thought is on the money. The difference with humans, as opposed to all others in the animal kingdom, is that the human is capable of making a conscious choice to change… to adapt, to be flexible, to think and adjust, etc. (I also think we humans are the only animals to put ice in our drinks…but that is for another day.)

While watching a DVD presentation recently by Les Brown I was impressed by a short story he told about a dog. The dog was whining and moaning when a visitor asked the dog’s owner what was wrong with the dog. The owner responded that he was lying on a nail. “Why doesn’t he move?” asked the visitor. “Well,” said the owner, “I guess it doesn’t hurt enough to move, just enough to convince him to whine and moan.”

Does this describe most of us? Are we uncomfortable enough to whine and moan but not uncomfortable enough to do something about the discomfort? One of my friends left me with a quote that perfectly depicts when change will occur. “Change happens,” he says, “when the pain of the present exceeds the fear of the future.”

Folks….that is profound!

While consulting last month with a firm owner, we were discussing the business operation, of course, and the fact that he was still working too much IN his business and not enough ON it. In short, he was swamped, stressed, and uncomfortable… yet not quite swamped, stressed and uncomfortable enough to make some much needed changes. Yes, the changes needed to make his situation better involved some risk. The change may cost some money, the change may vest some “power” into others hands, the change may cause the owner to have to become a better manager, the change may… (you fill in the blank).

Change is happening all around us in our personal lives as well as in our business lives. We cannot stop it. But to ultimately survive and prosper…to become successful (by whatever means you define success) we must adapt…we must change. And these changes may create risk. But if we don’t change… we may just go the way of the dinosaur. Remember them? They were big, strong, and fast…but they just couldn’t adapt… and they are nonexistent today.

If you don’t like change, you’ll like irrelevance even less.