What sort of work is suitable?

Any work that relies more on "soft skills" than formal qualifications is likely to benefit from Slivers-of-Time Workers. They are particularly useful where work patterns can be irregular and/or at short notice.

Because employers have not easily had access to an ultra-flexible pool of top-up workers before, they often don't spot where it could be useful to them. Some examples:

• One buyer of Slivers-of-Time workers for office support tasks was also employing a courier company to do a daily run delivering packages between their buildings. They then discovered that run could be a one hour booking for another seller every day. They are making considerable savings as a result.
• Many types of work should ideally be weather-dependant. If the task for example is painting a community hall sometime this week the decision as which day the 10 painters are needed can be made on the morning. If it looks like rain, wait.
• A company had a basement full of long ignored archive files. Once aware of how Slivers-of-Time works they were able to book a rotating squad of sellers whenever a supervisor was available to clear it out and key the data into their systems.

Serving the less well paid

Slivers-of-Time Working is best suited for people at the bottom of the wages pyramid. There is little expectation that it will work for accountants, lawyers or managers who tend to be: (a) rarely needed for small amounts of time (b) not expected to prove their reliability (c) well connected enough to find work through their networks.

For providers of less well-paid work, a Slivers-of-Time marketplace offers a self selecting pool: individuals who have chosen to work in a way that rewards them for constant flexibility and reliability. They may lack formal pieces of paper, but anyone who has attained the higher levels in a Slivers-of-Time market is a quality worker. It can be very cost effective to induct them in specific skills that you require.

• Inducting a pool of Slivers-of-Time Workers