When they call at 5 a.m., planning to take a day out of work, temporary employees working through Express Employment Professionals in Warwick often are surprised to hear the voice of the top woman in charge, Liliana V. Dolan.
They don’t expect the Rhode Island franchise owner to be answering the phone but she does, frequently urging them to reconsider the idea of taking a day off if they want to be hired on a permanent basis. Dolan has no tolerance for slackers, perhaps because she is so very far from being one herself.
Dolan and her two chief lieutenants take turns every week answering an Express cell phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because she said her business is always open. And that’s not the only surprise in store for the temps.
When necessary, Dolan and her eight-member staff will drive temps to work if they lack transportation, pick them up at the end of the workday, and even deliver their paychecks in person – all at no charge. Dolan says such service is, for her and her company, relatively routine.
Dolan has been working since she was 17 years old. She started as a legal secretary, working over the years for three different law firms in the Providence area and earning a paralegal certificate from the Community College of Rhode Island. Academia was not for her. “I hated college, I hated school,” she said. “I just wanted to work.”
In the late 1980s and most of the 1990s, she worked for a Providence law firm that specialized in real estate, having as many as 50 closings in one day. Within one month of her hiring, she became the office manager. She took charge of daily office operations, and at the same time continued as a paralegal and secretary for the firm.
The workload eventually took its toll. “I was burned out,” she said.
It was time to take stock. She could see a clear need for a temporary employment agency and decided to start one of her own in 1998, Temporarily Yours Inc. At first, she ran the business out of her home on her own time, while continuing to work as a temp herself.
She later moved the business to Johnston and then Warwick, sharing an office with lawyer Craig Watkinson and becoming a partner in his real estate title company, Watkinson Title.
Dolan would balance her time between real estate work and the staffing agency, working one or the other – or both – as the need arose. But, as the real estate market declined, her work in that field dwindled, and she eventually realized that the staffing agency deserved her full attention.
As if on cue, a national employment company franchise based in Oklahoma City came knocking on her office door, literally. Express Employment Professionals wanted to expand into Rhode Island.
Since May 2008, still located in the Warwick office she shares with Watkinson’s firm, Dolan has been the Rhode Island franchise owner for Express Employment Professionals.
“I can run my company just as I always have,” Dolan said, “but with more backing and more services.” Now staffed with eight employees, her agency can handle all of the human-resources work for just about any kind of company, from screening and placement of permanent workers to payroll and training, freeing up owners and managers to concentrate on the all-important job of growing their businesses. •
