SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET : POWER, PRESTIGE, STATUS : Finding the Right-Size Firm for a Perfect Fit : Big companies offer more pay and security, but you can make a bigger splash at a small one.
Michael F. O’Neill came back to a large corporation for the same reasons he left.
O’Neill, a lawyer with Wells Fargo Bank, once switched to a small firm because he was tired of the corporation’s many rules, rigid hierarchy and sharply defined work responsibilities. Four years later, he was back.
During that period in the early 1980s, O’Neill discovered something about himself: “I like knowing how the world is ordered. And I function better in that environment.”
One of the basic choices employees make in a career is whether to work for a large organization or a smaller one. O’Neill returned to the bank for reasons typical of those who choose big business: stability, better financial rewards and the security that goes with highly structured surroundings.
Yet others thrive in smaller firms, where they may enjoy closer relationships with colleagues and have more likelihood of getting credit for what they do. Small companies typically offer greater flexibility, more hands-on responsibility and quicker recognition of accomplishment than large ones.
Which is best depends to a large extent on who you are. “Those who like more intimate, smaller environments might be more inclined to work for a smaller company,” said Peter Fiorillo, president of Robert Half of New York Inc., a job placement firm. “On the other hand, those who want a lot of recognition and to play on a bigger team” are more likely to sign up with an IBM or Xerox.
One of the biggest incentives for thinking small is the greater opportunity for autonomy and for choosing what you do.
Take the 30-employee Irvine ad shop now known as dGWB. Several years ago, the firm was bought by a major international ad agency. Overnight, the realities of big-firm management set in.
First, the new owners mandated that virtually every decision--even minor ones--had to be cleared through the main office in New York, recalled Jim deYong, dGWB’s executive vice president. Next, the local agency’s executives lost a say in deciding which of their staffers got raises.
Then the Irvine office worked hard to pick up a new account, deYong said, only to have word come from New York: “We had to resign the account because it wasn’t in keeping with (the New York agency’s) image. I felt like I was banging my head against the wall and getting nothing accomplished.”
Fed up, deYong and his partners packed their portfolios two years ago and started dGWB with a 13-employee staff. (It since has grown to 30.)
“Now if we screw up, there’s nobody to blame but ourselves,” deYong said. “And there’s nobody to congratulate but ourselves when we do something right.”
At the same time, the financial pressures have intensified. “Before, I never lost a minute’s sleep worrying about making payroll because the guys in New York had to worry about it,” deYong acknowledged. “Now, no matter how well we do, I still worry.”
Still, the headaches are more than worth it, say many small-firm employees, when balanced against the chance to get increased responsibility and freedom quicker than they could at a larger firm.
Sometimes it’s the simple pleasures of life--like being able to use a photocopier without waiting for hours--that helps to lure people to small firms.
Brian E. Brick left a 200-member Los Angeles firm for a four-attorney office in Glendale where he earns probably one-third less than he did before.
But the sacrifice in pay has been offset by gains in his environment and life style. The three-hour waits for over-used copying machines are a thing of the past. And the working atmosphere in the Glendale office is much more personal. “I know what my partners and associates are doing,” said the partner at Berg, Brick & Weber. “Plus, if I want to go to the baseball game or shopping midweek, I can,”
For others, however, small business means big limitations. Such people may rank the independence and flexibility offered at smaller firms lower on their priority scales than the virtues of job security, a strong support staff and the chance to move among departments in a more expansive firm.
When O’Neill, now Wells Fargo’s senior counsel and vice president, left the bank 11 years ago, he joined a real estate development company in Pasadena and quickly discovered the downside to small-firm life.
Hired as general counsel, he--like others--found himself wearing several hats and began selling some real estate syndications. “It was exciting, but it was also uncomfortable,” he said. “I didn’t have a small area of expertise I could rely on.”
Life at a small firm can be unnerving in other ways, too. When the real estate market soured, the defunct firm at one point sold pachinko games--those hand-held, pinball machines--by mail to build its cash flow.
O’Neill found himself craving a return to order. So he rejoined Wells Fargo in San Francisco, where “you know who you take direction from and where your job is.”
Often, you gain a financial premium at a larger firm, as well. Consider the results of a 1986 survey of 850 large and small companies by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bigger firms outstripped their smaller counterparts when it came to offering health insurance (98% vs. 55%), paid vacations (92% vs. 58%), life insurance (83% vs. 29%), paid sick leave (79% vs. 36%), pension coverage (69% vs. 16%), as well as bonuses, savings plans and short-term disability.
Big companies also can offer legions of support staffers to help with just about any problem--meaning you’re never on the playing field alone.
Working with a cast of thousands also means more people to pitch in when it comes to emergencies, taking time off and vacations.
At Atlantic Richfield’s Los Angeles offices, John Tonsick is a senior auditor who discovered that luxury first hand after spending five years with a five-person accounting firm. “At my old firm, if I didn’t show up for work, literally 20% of the work force was out, and something that had to get done wouldn’t,” he said. “That’s certainly not the case at ARCO.”
As a result, Tonsick estimates, he has gained 25% to 30% more personal time since signing on with the big energy company more than a year ago.
The trade-off? “Personally, my life is much, much better. And professionally, it’s very satisfying,” he said of his new job.
But Tonsick admits ruefully that he probably got more satisfaction from his accomplishments at the smaller firm. At ARCO, “I might make big waves, but I’m not going to turn the company on its ear,” he said.
