Zachary W. Smith

Zack Smith is an associate principal in the Labor & Employment Practice at Charles River Associates. Mr. Smith began working with CRA while completing his graduate degree at Florida State University in 2015. Since then, he has cultivated extensive experience working with attorneys and human resource professionals on labor and employment matters involving wage and hour support, studies of compensation and employment events, compliance and risk management, and diversity and inclusion benchmarking and goal setting.

Mr. Smith regularly assists clients in achieving successful mediation and litigation outcomes in federal and state wage and hour matters. He specializes in navigating and synthesizing complex and often nuanced databases to prepare data for production and deliver actionable reports that allow counsel to test the impact of assumptions on estimated damages and penalties and develop effective strategies by getting ahead of potential challenges from opposing counsel. His scope of wage and hour expertise includes regular rate and off-the-clock claims, missed meal and rest period analyses, evaluation of rounding rules on measured work time, overtime claims, and misclassification matters.

In the equity arena, Mr. Smith designs and leverages econometric models to conduct studies of compensation, hiring, terminations, promotions, and performance evaluations. He works closely with clients to ensure merit and promotion decisions are equitable, to close gaps that could otherwise lead to exposure, and to prepare cents on the dollar analyses intended for public disclosure. Mr. Smith specializes in the design and execution of sensible remediation methodologies that factor in both employee characteristics and business rules to achieve desired outcomes.

Lastly, Mr. Smith enjoys working with human capital teams to develop and implement meaningful diversity and inclusion metrics. He has in-depth experience helping clients prepare diversity goals that are grounded in data and are based on internal and external benchmarks aligning to recruiting practices and specific talent needs. Furthermore, Mr. Smith designs interactive benchmarking tools that provide clients with the ability to view various slices of their workforce, compare representation to the market, track attrition and other employment measures across time, and leverage projection models that assist with goal setting over multiple horizons.