Implementing these policies would wreak havoc in many businesses. But Strohecker set up Harbor Sweets around the idea of a fluctuating work force meeting fluctuating demand. He also tried to make the company not only flexible, but enjoyable. "If you're not having fun," he likes to joke, "you're fired." The truth is probably a little different: if you're not having fun, you'll probably quit -- because you're surely not depending on a part-time job at Harbor Sweets for survival.
That means the company must treat you with respect to keep you. So there are no time clocks. All employees are responsible for quality control, and their decisions to junk products that don't meet their standards are never questioned. Until this past year, the company never attempted to measure an average speed for any given process; managers simply assumed that employees were working as fast as they could. In addition, each month managers share a simplified version of the profit-and-loss statement.
"The first time I shared my financials," Strohecker remembers, "it was like taking a cold bath." But nothing happened except that when times were bad, his employees came up with cost-cutting suggestions to make the company profitable again. Such, Strohecker says, has been his experience ever since he founded the company. He is perennially letting go of some aspect of control and authority with great trepidation and then discovering things work better without it. "What I've learned is that these weird management ideas turned out to be damned good business," he says.
Exactly how "good business" his ideas are is hard to tell, because in a way, Strohecker never cared. Harbor Sweets is generally profitable, but its managers feel its typical pretax margins of 3% to 4% are low for a high-end, custom-manufactured candy. Then again, Strohecker and his managers have always seen profit only as a means to an end, which is running a company embodying his "weird management ideas" and making top-notch candy. That's why Harbor Sweets has never conducted a serious cost-benefit analysis of its part-time, flextime, and flexible-attendance policies.
Some of the savings in recruitment and training are apparent, however. Harbor Sweets should have been hard hit by the labor shortage that had plagued the Boston area throughout much of the 1980s, as were other local companies that depend heavily on unskilled workers. But it wasn't. While fast-food restaurants typically report annual turnover of 285% or more, some three-fourths of Harbor Sweets's employees return each year, and 40% have worked there for three or more years. To recruit, all the company does is take out a classified ad in a weekly regional newspaper each summer and one three-day ad in the Salem paper. This year the company hired only 39 of the 300 applicants. (The key: employee referrals, and a line in the ad that reads, "Schedules to fit your needs.") Until last November, the company had never gone outside to hire an officer, manager, or supervisor; there was plenty of talent in the part-time work force.
As Harbor Sweets grows, however, its flexibility becomes less crucial to attracting good employees. The seasonality of the business is gradually decreasing as the company diversifies its customer base. As a result, some 50 employees worked year-round last year. In addition, the company has a growing number of full-time workers. That means its work force is beginning to look more like everybody else's, which brings pressure to provide competitive wages and benefits.
Growth also makes it harder to coordinate the logistics of part-time scheduling. "There may come a time when part-time is not as efficient," admits Phillips, adding that Harbor Sweets is nevertheless committed to part-time as a company philosophy.
Then there are the subtle strains that growth places on the family atmosphere Strohecker and his employees prize. "We've lost a little of the friendliness," says Ruth Keyes, 71. A 10-year Harbor Sweets veteran, she holds a master's degree in education, yet in her retirement loves packing chocolates to keep from being bored and lonely. Keyes still finds Harbor Sweets a warm and fun workplace, yet now she'll sometimes see a colleague at the end of the day and not even know they had been working together.
It isn't always easy running a company where trust is as important as making money. Phyllis LeBlanc could testify to that as she prepared to begin last September's presentation on Harbor Sweets's financial performance. Unlike the year before, the news was good. The changes LeBlanc, the company's chief operating officer, had made after the previous year's losses were apparently beginning to have an effect. It looked as though it would be a good season.
Still, LeBlanc knew that didn't necessarily mean it would be a good meeting. She'd met earlier in the day with some of the people before her and listened to them complain about the repercussions of one of her changes. Now, she wanted to reassure them that she shared the company's values and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the quality of its products.
To a visitor, it seemed an odd position for a COO. For it wasn't her boss, her investors, her managers, or even her customers to whom LeBlanc wanted to prove her commitment. Instead, she faced several dozen women (and a man or two) who had crowded into Harbor Sweets's packing area. Many were middle-aged and motherly looking, in hats or red aprons. As they chatted before the meeting began, they looked about as forbidding as the lunch ladies in an elementary school cafeteria.
