This newsletter is distributed to anyone selling in a Slivers-Of-Time
marketplace. Also, to those waiting for a market to start in their area who have registered at www.sliversoftime.com
It will keep you posted on developments in this exciting new way of working. |
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IN THIS ISSUE |
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SELLER IN THE SPOLIGHT |
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Mature sellers |
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It's sometimes assumed that the people who'll do best in markets for Slivers-of-Time are the young. It's not so. Henry Odametey is 51. He was working as an Administration Manager for a financial services firm. But it went bust. “Because of my age, it was very difficult to get a new job” he says.
So Henry, who lives in Silvertown, East London, turned to selling Slivers. Now he's at Market Level 5 [Bookings: 37, Hours Sold: 170, Buyers: 11]. It wasn't completely plain sailing. “When I got my first text message from the system I didn't really understand it” he recalls. But he settled into the new way of working, going to the library regularly to update his availability screen.
And Henry's work ethic is benefiting East London employers. He's already doing freelance book-keeping work and uses Slivers to sell spare hours around whatever work comes in. “Sometimes I get a Slivers booking that I really don't want to do”he points out “but I want to keep my market grading, and premium rate, so I just do them”. His worst ever booking? “Picking up litter in a park in Hackney”. And the best? “Community outreach for Newham Council.”
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SLIVERS FUTURES: |
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Recruitment Revolutionary |
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Chris: Life at the Edge
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Chris Leonard is a maverick in the recruitment industry. Having built a traditional branch-based national agency, he then founded the highly publicized Tempz.com, an agency for temporary work with no branches, just a website, in 1999. That collapsed after the dot.com boom when the main investor went bust. “I was going to give up on recruitment at that point” he explains “but I met my new business partner and became enthused about a new vision for the future of work”.
That vision is manifested in The Edge UK, a new agency covering the West Country. Last year Chris discovered Slivers. “I read about it in the business press, looked up the website and thought ‘this is it, this is how the industry has to go'”. Now, The Edge is working with Exeter University to launch a Slivers-of-Time market for the city. But it's just part of the futuristic agency that Chris is shaping.
“We'll soon have a community type website where job-seekers can display videos and photographs of themselves aimed at employers. And where employers can promote themselves to potential workers using video,” says Chris. Like Slivers, this may require a shifting mindset in recruitment. “For many employers the first instinct when they want a worker is to pick up the phone” he says. “But tools like Slivers are definitely the way forward. The writing's on the wall for the old ways of doing business”.
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TIP: |
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Broken Mobile? |
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Cartoon by Shamima Aktar Koli, Slivers-
of-Time seller [Bookings: 63, Hours Sold:
187, Buyers: 4]
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What do you do if you're selling in a Slivers market and your phone gets lost or broken? Go to the “My Contactability” page and tick “don't send me messages for now”. Untick the box when your problem is solved.. |
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CASE STUDY: |
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Catering's ups and downs |
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It's a rollercoaster life in the contract catering market. “We typically have 3 big events a week” explains Binay Aryel, Manager of upmarket eatery Café Spice near London's Tower Hill. “The number of attendees can range from 40 to more than 150. One day the menu may be a simple buffet, the next it's canapés which need staff to hand round each plate”. Then there's weddings. “We have an official contract to cater for celebrations at the Emirates stadium” explains Binay.
Is Binay's need clear yet? Yes, he started buying Slivers-of-Time sellers this month. “We've been very satisfied” he says. “They're good quality people”. Pre-Slivers, Café Spice relied on agency staff who needed to be booked well in advance with minimum work periods that often didn't match the timing of events.
Café Spice have been so delighted with their Slivers sellers that they've already used them on a long-overdue project. 7 years worth of old invoices needed to be sorted into a new filing system. Binay explains “we used 2 sellers at different times over 3 days when one of us was free to supervise”. Once again for a Slivers buyer: job done!
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July 2007
Published on the last Friday of the month |
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Slivers-of-Time: the basics
Marketplaces for Slivers-of-Time are for:
who wants to work around other things in their life, such as:
-childcare
-studying
-part-time work
-caring for adult
-medical commitments
- Organisations who need top-up workers at short notice, for short periods:
-councils
-caterers
-retailers
-logistics supplier
Benefits:
- Sellers: do whatever odd hours of work they want and quickly build skills, experience and a track record they can print at any time.
- Buyers: access a self-selecting pool of local people who choose to work in a way that demands flexibility and rewards reliability.
Signing up:
Anyone who wants to know when a market-place is starting in their area should enter their details at:
www.sliversoftime.com
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