As law firms’ international client bases expand, so does the demand for around-the-clock operations. To keep in sync with international client needs and level work flow demands, East and West coast firms are taking advantage of the time-zone differences to cover their peak workload periods immediately before and after the working day. A Boston firm taps into its Los Angeles staff after secretaries have gone home. In return, the Boston office handles left over work from the night before in the morning hours before Los Angeles secretaries come in. 

 

As more firms become more global in their operations, staffing offices with second- and third-shift personnel presents special challenges for HR professionals. Generally, night-owl employees require the same services as their daylight counterparts with some changes in emphasis. Office security becomes a larger issue including the need to get people to and from work after hours. Putting a security guard at the reception desk is a common feature, and one New York firm runs vans from heavily lighted 24-hour restaurant parking lots in suburban locations where they have made arrangements for employees to park. In addition to security and making sure at least one person who knows how to brew a pot of coffee, HR may also find itself on-call 24-hours a day to provide the same benefit and employee assistance services the day shift workers receive. Most firms pay a premium (ranging from 25 cents per hour to as much as $50 per week) for staff members working irregular hours. Generally, the more isolated the work situation, the higher the premium.

 

An increasingly attractive alternative is off-hour work from home secretaries. With high-speed internet access and electronic dictation that can be sent as email attachments, firms are finding themselves able to provide after hours services with a minimum of infrastructure overhead.