Firms’ Needs Grow for Part-Time Professionals

In this era of corporate cost cutting and workers’ shifting career objectives, the office “temp” is no longer just a receptionist or clerk working a few days for minimum wages.

Temporary jobs are opening up increasingly for professional and executive-level employees who command as much as $100 or more an hour, say personnel managers.

And employment firms, such as Pickwick Group Inc. and M2 Management Maximizers, are springing up to help the job seekers and the employers find each other. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 2 million Americans now work as part-time professionals.

Variety of Work

Pickwick Group, a specialized employment service founded in Boston by two working mothers, has a list of more than 2,000 professionals seeking part-time jobs and some 250 companies looking for them.

M2, a San Francisco company started a year ago by Marion Blaum McGovern, lists more than 300 professionals in its pool, about 70% of them women.

The job seekers average 12 years of experience in their fields, often working with computers or in other technical areas, and have been placed by M2 in temporary jobs at salaries between $35 and $135 an hour.

M2’s clients have included Pacific Gas & Electric Co., California First Bank and Lucasfilms, the California company known for its special effects in blockbuster movies.

Julia York, assistant treasurer at PG&E;, said one part-timer with financial expertise proved so valuable to the utility that she was used twice. “It worked very well,” she said.

McGovern, 31, a former professional blackjack player in Las Vegas and graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, said she launched M2 when she discovered that many professional women were leaving the work force after they had children and could not find new jobs with flexible hours.

She said she also knew that many companies needed highly skilled employees who could work on temporary, one-time projects without permanently joining the payroll.

“Given the apparent supply and apparent demand, this seemed like a potential business,” she said in a recent interview at M2’s small office in San Francisco’s financial district.

Downsizing Companies

McGovern’s partner, Paula Reynolds, and executive search consultant Lili Devereux Pratt run the business. All three have MBAs and are mothers.

The trio--like the job seekers they help--work part time at M2, scheduling their hours so that they can share two desks.

In some cases, part-time professionals are matched with jobs that may last only a month or two. In others, the jobs may run for an indefinite period but require only two or three days of work a week.

One woman placed by M2 now earns $60,000 a year, working a 30-hour week for a job that was once a full-time position paying $80,000.

In some cases, companies that are shedding staff may need new employees.

“We have a client now who is doing the epitome of downsizing,” said McGovern. “They’re probably going out of business, but business must still go on and they can’t hire people permanently because everyone knows there is no future there.”

Pratt, 40, a former product manager for jeans manufacturer Levi Strauss & Co., said she thinks part-time professional job seekers are more interesting and more self-motivated than those found in the traditional executive job-hunting pool.

“I think that’s because they are all people who have chosen to take some control over their careers. They are either mature enough or self-confident enough to say ‘Hey, I’m going to do this my way,’ ” she said.

Some of the part-timers are professionals who took early retirement or were dismissed when their companies cut their staffs. Others suffered burnout and are not ready to return to full-time jobs. A few own businesses of their own and are looking for more income or new opportunities.

Cyndi Privett, director of computer distribution services for InfoCorp, a market research firm in Cupertino, is typical of the professional women who found it impossible to spend a full week in the office after giving birth.

Privett, 26, now works 20-hour weeks at InfoCorp, going into the office for 12 hours each week and working another eight hours from home.

“I think everyone should work part time,” she said. “In fact, I think that on many days, on my four hours in the office I get as much done as I used to get done in an eight-hour day. I’m more motivated to go in, get the work done and get out.”

Tom Mandel, a trend watcher at SRI International, a Menlo Park-based think tank, said part-time work for white-collar workers expanded rapidly during the 1980s and is likely to continue into the 1990s.