Family Matters

Quality of Life Diversity Across the Bar - Newsletter Getting Involved in the Florida Bar

FAMILY MATTERS
By Rachel A. Gorenflo, Eighteenth Circuit Representative, YLD Board of Governors

In coming up with the fundamental beliefs that would serve as the foundation for our law firm, Gray & Gorenflo, P.A., my partner and I agreed on the concept that you only have one life to live; although work is important, family is always first. If you keep that in mind and act accordingly, everything else will fall into place. The simplest rule is to treat others, including your staff, in a manner similar to how you would like to be treated. When I documented the practices of our firm, the Florida Bar Young Lawyer’s Division bestowed upon us the Michael K. Reese Quality of Life Award. Through sharing our philosophy and experience, I hope that others might see some alternatives to current practices that they might implement.

Instead of discussing all of the different policies we have with respect to employment, I am going to focus on some specific issues that are present and how we have addressed these issues. For example, our firm does not have a limit of sick days per year for the staff (although we do limit paid sick days to 2 weeks at a given time due to major illness). The reason for this is simple: sick people spread germs. If you have a sick employee at work, it will likely spread through the office and result in many employees being absent. We have always let the staff know that if the policy is abused, we will implement a limitation on sick days. We have now been in business for almost seven years, and our policy remains intact.

Another challenge for small firms is competing with larger firms with respect to employee fringe benefits available. We recently transferred to an employee leasing company in order to obtain more benefits for the staff. Specifically, we now not only pay for health insurance benefits for the staff, but also dental and vision. Because of the benefits offered by the leasing company, staff are now able to obtain life insurance and disability insurance, both long term and short term. We also have a Simple IRA plan that is available for which we match up to 3 percent of the staff salary after one year of employment.

There are also employment perks that we have offered in order to increase employee job satisfaction. We take the staff to lunch on their birthday and for staff appreciation days. We offer snacks and soft drinks at no cost to the staff. All staff members are provided with a membership to Sam’s Wholesale Club at no cost. We have a nice Christmas party each year where in addition to an end of year bonus, the staff receives a stay at a nice hotel for four days and three nights and time off to take this trip. This year we got all of the staff a spa package as well.

There are so many other little practices that we have but are limited in time and space. Suffice it to say that when you improve the quality of life for employees, you will find that employee loyalty will be high, turnover will be low and overall productivity will increase, thereby increasing profits.