FAQs

People don't want to work through a computer. They need contact with branch staff. Have you forgotten about Tempz.com?

• The Slivers-of-Time market is only really viable with technology, it's not attempting to replace anything that exists currently. It's true that millions of pounds have been burned by start-up businesses that believed they - and the internet - would revolutionise recruitment by doing away with branches. Nobody sees that as the objective for Slivers-of-Time. Human contact will remain essential, but it has to add value for the customers, not be a hindrance to their aspirations.
• Market research has shown the level of distrust that too often exists around branch staff. There is a perception that they are motivated only by the next commission cheque and will send any temp to any assignment just to get the task off their "to do" list. It may be unfair on your staff but the high level of turnover in the recruitment industry doesn't help the perception.
• Some commentators believe the new sophistication in Internet bookings that's coming over the horizon will cause the same problems for recruitment that an earlier generation of sites cause travel agents. The more valuable customers (candidates) will migrate to start-ups unless agencies are willing to change their relationship with individuals.
• Using Slivers-of-Time, your staff can add value not by being bookings clerks who tell temps where to go and what they will earn. Rather, they can evolve towards being an advisor to sellers - who are in control of their own market interactions. On the other side they have a role ensuring the right people are cleared to sell spare hours to the agency's buyers. Not all branches are high calibre enough to make this transition. But, if your staff are good, it's a great opportunity to be an added value player in this new market.

My clients won't allow workers to have individually constructed pay rates. They are obsessed with cutting costs.

• Which is exactly why they should be letting the local market determine the going rate for every single booking, not trying to impose a standard rate on all purchases. Let's take the travel industry example again. When the low-cost airlines, whose price for a seat can vary from £1 to £200 depending on the flight's popularity, got off the ground most observers assumed they would be embraced by backpackers but ignored by hard nosed business travellers who need predictable costs. Right?
• Wrong. By 2004 American Express found 81% of UK corporate travellers regarded carriers like EasyJet and Ryanair as an accepted way of reaching business appointments. Once dynamic pricing becomes automated, transparent and competitively driven it can offer real cost savings over standardised rates. In the Slivers-of-Time market, it also drives quality because it constantly prices local people into local work, which they need to do well to continue to sell their time with the minimum of travel.

Why do you use the terms buyers and sellers? Why not clients and candidates?

• People who choose to sell their odd hours aren't candidates for anything. They don't get sent along for positions. They do a booking, endorsed by the marketplace and your staff, and that's the end of the matter. We found users were confused by being called candidates: candidates for what? The language of online auction services makes more sense to potential users. eBay is where you go to sell your spare items, your agency's site is there when you need to sell spare hours.

I already have a computerised booking system, which cost me a fortune, why do I need another?

• Slivers-of-Time bookings is a new channel. It is a very complex, fragmented market. It has to be made click-click-buy simple for buyers and completely intuitive and controllable for sellers, if it is to have any value. That means a lot of complexity absorbed into the system. This is not workflow automation but a fully functioning online marketplace that is only now economically viable. You would be unlikely to use it for your normal placements, it processes too much detail.
• Your Slivers-of-Time marketplace can feed data into existing systems. It can work with only minimal details of sellers if you would rather store their data elsewhere. But it can make a new channel of business work for you in a way that existing agency software can't.

Why should I join the Slivers-of-Time programme? Why not just build my own software?

• You could, but don't underestimate the complexity of technology required. Or the work needed to keep the functionality developing as the market deepens. There's nothing to stop you building your own word processing package either, but most agencies choose an off-the-shelf solution so they can concentrate on core competencies in their front end business.
• You would also have to deal with a lot of intellectual property issues that have been resolved by the programme and, finally, you will come up against the limits of your own pool of bookings. Selling odd hours is only going to be a peripheral segment of the recruitment sector. It's the most fragmented market imaginable for both supply and demand. Other online services that trade much simpler commodities have learned that buyers and sellers invariably gravitate towards the largest market. Do you want to be a sliproad into that, owning customers' relationship with all that usefulness, or a standalone island?

My business is about the personal touch. Who's going to trust a computer to tell if a worker is right for a particular employer?

• Correctly matching employer and employee is time intensive and can lead to mistrust of the agency when, inevitably, it goes wrong. The Slivers-of-Time marketplace doesn't attempt to replicate this process. What it does is present an extremely detailed, objective, overview of everyone who is qualified/ available /willing for a particular booking at that moment. It also shows the rate at which each will do the job. This intuitive overview of the market for a buyer's needs is on screen within fractions of a second. Faced with an overview of options, it's then easy for the buyer to decide what her criteria for selection are.

Will this interfere with my existing software?

• No. There's no software to install. In technical terms you just add a link from your website to the Slivers-of-Time servers, (we can do this for you). The marketplace presents itself in your branding, with whatever name you choose to give it (feel free to call it your Slivers-of-Time channel if you want). To the user it feels like an integral part of your site but the technical issues are all ours.
• The system outputs aggregated data for payroll and invoicing whenever you want. That is in CSV format, ready to be loaded into any other system. Interfaces to the major agency software vendors are being added.

How safe is my data?

• The Slivers-of-Time programme will not use your data except to bill you and to compile aggregated information about market activity. We have no interest in coming between you and your buyers and sellers. Any communications by the system carry your branding. We can offer assistance with a communications strategy, for example with a regular Slivers-of-Time newsletter, but it's always branded as yours.

My staff won't know how to use this. What about training?

• We provide full training materials and face-to-face or telephone coaching. (There may be a charge associated with this to cover costs.) There are three key processes to be mastered: (a) registering a seller (b) registering a buyer (c) payroll and invoicing data transfer. Other than that it's a matter of watching the number of bookings build up every day and deciding whether to intervene if something unexpected happens in a transaction.

The charge to fund the marketplace has to come from somewhere. Why should I allow it into the value chain?

• The market is funded by a small cut of each transaction fee for which the agency is billed on a regular cycle. This is new business with lower overheads and potential for "land grab" at the expense of your competitors who won't serve this end of the market. It is financed in the least risky way possible: no transactions, no fees.

I don't like the sound of agency partnering. Why should I work with my competitors?

• You don't have to! If you would rather run a standalone pool of buyers and sellers that's fine. But you might find those buyers and sellers starting to drift to other agencies. Because Slivers-of-Time is so fragmented in its supply and demand you will be providing a better service for customers if you select other branches in your area who match your own standards of quality and service and allow their sellers to be displayed to your buyers and/or vice versa.
• This master vending on a booking-by-booking basis is entirely under your control. You decide who is acceptable, both parties have to agree the margin split. All the administration during and after a deal is handled by the marketplace.

What's to stop the buyer getting the seller's mobile number and contacting them directly next time they have a booking?

• It's a long standing problem for temp agencies. How do you deal with it now? Quarantine rules? Asking candidates to keep you posted on approaches? Clauses in the Terms and Conditions? All that protection is still there for you.
• And there's more. Slivers-of-Time sellers are strongly motivated to stay within the marketplace. It manages their availability, promotes them based on number of successfully completed bookings, calculates their individual rate for each job and exposes them to multiple employers. They could give that up and wait for Company X to call them, but it's less likely in such a fragmented market.

Isn't this going to be just another weapon for the big agencies to beat up the little guys?

• Depends who takes the lead in each area. There are real advantages to being the first mover in a locality. The "low hanging fruit" of buyers and sources of sellers with a pressing need for the new service can be won over and signed up before the less motivated branch manager of a multiple has woken up to what's going on. It's about local initiative, not size.

Which agencies are already involved?

• We are neutral between agencies and our door is open! We are keen to work with the REC who has set up sessions with members to explore the potential of Slivers-of-Time for the industry. Currently our main focus is on big buyers, making corporate users of contingent labour aware of what's coming. Agencies can then choose whether they wish to serve them.

• Register interest
• What's the need for government?