These jobs come without attachment

TIGHT SHIP: Miriam A. Ross runs her own legal firm, keeping one counsel in-house, Kevin P. Braga, pictured above, and hiring temp clerical help when needed. / PBN FILE PHOTO/NATALJA KENT
TIGHT SHIP: Miriam A. Ross runs her own legal firm, keeping one counsel in-house, Kevin P. Braga, pictured above, and hiring temp clerical help when needed. / PBN FILE PHOTO/NATALJA KENT

(Editor’s note: This is the third in an occasional series of stories that will feature the companies and industries creating jobs in the region.)
When Cherie Daniel, a website designer based in Bristol, was an agency employee she relied on occasional freelance work to supplement her income.
When that agency folded, she started to rely on it for much more.
“[The freelance work] morphed into me saying, ‘This might really work; I think I can do this,’ ” Daniel said. “I made the jump to, ‘Let’s do this on my own.’ ” At CCInspire, which she officially launched last year, she’s almost alone – but not quite. A semi-exclusive partnership with CCInspire Hosting, run by former colleague Adam Gerhard out of New Hampshire, allows her to focus on design work, including for several Rhode Island tourism organizations. Gerhard handles the technical aspects Daniel otherwise would have to hire an in-house person to handle.
Daniel’s business model – handling almost the entire business herself and contracting out task specific or temporary work – is increasingly being embraced by entrepreneurs who want to start out small and, more or less, stay that way.
“It’s something that we’ve been seeing pretty consistently for the last two or three years,” said Adriana Dawson, state director of Johnson & Wales University’s Rhode Island Small Business Development Center. “We’ve been seeing a lot more activity with the ‘onesies’ coming in and exploring entrepreneurship and creating a home-based or micro business and doing well.”
In March, according to the R.I. Department of Labor and Training’s most recent available statistics, 49.5 percent, or 15,684, of private employers in the state have between one and four employees.
The 5,699 businesses employing zero workers – meaning a one-person shop – represent 18 percent of private employers.
“I wouldn’t do it any other way,” said Julie Lancia, who 12 years ago founded ALX Group, an interior design firm in North Providence. “[And] from a business standpoint, it just makes sense.”
Lancia’s business needs require some flexibility and independence. She travels internationally several times per year and finds it easy to trust that contract workers – who need to produce quality work on time in order to earn their fees – will deliver.
“They’re trying to keep their [own] business running. When you have a big company, there’s a tendency [to slack],” Lancia said. “With these guys, everyone is a small business and trying to survive. Everyone is trying to work at their best.”
The DLT isn’t able to provide clear statistics on workers who provide contracted services because those workers aren’t on anyone’s payroll but they’re not on unemployment either, a spokesperson said.
James Wright runs Bridge Technical Solutions, a temp staffing firm focused on the technology industry, in East Greenwich.
He said he has more than 50 active clients who regularly turn to him for temporary staffing needs and a “very strong local pool” of workers to fill them.
“There’s a whole bunch of great reasons [to be a temp], but it’s not for everyone,” Wright said. “There are considerable downsides in terms of stability, just the administration of it in terms of taxes and health care insurance. But for those who make a lifestyle of it, it works for them.”
The tech industry is among the “creative” fields for which this business model seems to work.
Project-based and as-needed work allow owners to call for extra help when it’s needed and not worry about all that comes with employing others when it’s not.
“It fits better into the business model because you’re not having to worry about keeping somebody busy and, obviously, having to pay them,” said Miriam Ross, who has run her law practice, Miriam A. Ross, Esq., in Providence for eight years. “I think the primary motivator is the value proposition. It’s lean and mean, as it were.”
Ross has another counsel in-house and has hired temporary clerical help when necessary.
She designed her law firm to be small and doesn’t have plans to grow. If she did make a part-time hire, she said, it would be for a paralegal. White said his pool of temp workers has success in finding placements because they have specialized skills that roaming from job to job helps them continually develop.
Lancia contracts work to artists for renderings and for lighting and sound design work.
She also contracts out plumbing and construction work.
Dawson points out a prominence in female-led businesses to go this route because it allows those entrepreneurs more lifestyle flexibility and control.
Evelyn Audet, proprietor of Evelyn Audet Lighting Designs, has remained a solo operation since she formed 25 years ago. She cites maintaining a home and personal relationships as female-centric business challenges.
For her East Providence business, she has hired temporary administrative help and, on occasion, has had an intern work with her on more creative tasks.
“My business is too small to afford an additional salary, but it’s large enough where I need help, so I’m kind of stuck right in the middle,” Audet said. “It’s working out, especially in this economy. There are ups and downs and times when I’m extremely busy and times when I’m not.”
If the recent recession pushed people out of full-time jobs, it also thrust them together.
At first in terms of availability, as unemployed people have more time to network and brainstorm.
“I think people have become extremely resourceful and have looked at networking as a vehicle they may not have thought of before,” Dawson said. “I think it’s a necessity and a part of the business model.”
Daniel and Gerhard met when they worked together at the now-defunct agency, which she declined to name.
Ross relies on a network of professionals whom she’s met over the years.
Lancia said she’s built a community with like-minded business owners. She sometimes gives work to other designers who are friends when her own workload becomes too heavy.
“I feel the way the economy is, everyone is open, basically, to forming a group together,” she said. “I find it much easier to have a consortium of people in their own businesses to come together to do our work.” •

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