FAQs

I have just spent months running a beauty contest among the big agencies, then painfully negotiating a fixed hourly rate for temps and a PSL (Preferred Supplier List) with a favoured master vendor agency. Now you're telling me I should move towards fluid pricing and open the doors to any agency that wants to supply me?

• If you really need an ultra-flexible, responsive and motivated workforce then - sorry - that is the message. Fixed contracts are the best way of resolving the complexity of a fragmented recruitment industry at the moment. But the problems these arrangements cause at the coal-face of your organisation are well documented. Your procurement department may have pushed the agency into a razor thin margin and the temp pay rate to the floor. But the managers of your stores / contact centres / factories / outlets are likely to then be on the receiving end of de-motivated candidates, something even the most stringent SLA (Service Level Agreement) is unlikely to capture.
• Also, your fixed rate takes little account of changing market conditions, even if it includes an element of banding. You could be paying the same hourly rate in Manchester on a Monday morning, where there's a bountiful supply of workers at the moment, as on a Saturday night in Leeds where branch staff are struggling even to meet the minimal terms of their SLA. Slivers-of-Time pricing works on similar principles to budget airlines, an increasingly popular choice for cost conscious businesses.
• What you want is to pay the best market rate possible for every individual booking. That's what your agency's Slivers-of-Time channel can deliver. Your PSL can be infinite, the marketplace is monitoring quality all the time. It shows you everyone eligible to fulfil your immediate requirements, displayed in price order, with their reliability ranking. With multiple agencies supplying your master vendor there should be a deeper pool from which to select.
• People who are good will cost you more, but good workers can save you money very quickly. If lots of sellers want your shift you'll fill it cheaply, saving your funds for times when there's less willingness to work. This comes on top of all the other benefits of the Slivers-of-Time market: absolute precision in the times and numbers of people booked, decided right up to the last moment; documented accountability of your buying staff and full reporting.

My struggle is to find the right people and lock them into full time positions. Why should I look for such a flexible workforce?

• Because there's a big pool of people who would rather work for you on their own terms. No-one expects senior staff to work Slivers-of-Time. But you should also be looking for quality workers in your more lowly positions. This could be where you find them.

Surely this channel is going to just offer me the dross workers who aren't good enough to get a real job. Where's the quality?

• No channel is perfect but the opposite to your assertion is more likely. Some of the most inert, unmotivated, workers are ticking over in "real jobs" where they have carved out a comfortable niche knowing it will be too painful for the employer to get rid of them.
• By contrast, individuals who choose to sell Slivers-of-Time are selecting a way of working in which you are only as good as your last booking, the market competes for the consistently reliable and you have to do a good job for your buyers today because their costs of switching to someone else tomorrow are next to zero. It's not a way of working that's right for everyone, but you probably want to engage with the kind of people who do take it up.

Why has government funded this new marketplace?

• Who foots the bill for unemployment benefits? Where does the buck stop for the social and economic problems that go with areas of worklessness? Which organisation needs the most productive UK workforce possible as part of its push for investment across all areas of the British economy?
• Government has a pressing need to make the labour market more inclusive and accessible. It is constantly looking for innovative solutions to economic problems and recognises the potential of a neutral Slivers-of-Time marketplace. Slivers-of-Time may help cut public expenditure.

We aren't ready to do online bookings. Can the marketplace help us?

• It depends on your agency. If they will take telephone instructions and book on your behalf then, yes, you can start buying Slivers-of-Time immediately.

Who vets the workers? Who pays them? Who's responsible?

• The agency provide the same protection for you that they do with conventional temping assignments. Slivers-of-Time is just about very precise bookings from a wider pool of people.

What if I want to extend a booking?

• If the seller is willing, no problem. They'll make the changes on the system and you authorise them.

We have an e-employee logistics system that allows us to keep staff on a zero hours contract and call them in exactly as needed. Why do we need the Slivers-of-Time programme?

• Your system probably works very well for you at the moment. It means you can keep staff on standby on minimal pay, or no pay, and summon them when it becomes economical to pay them.
• It works less well for the individuals. If I am going to sit at home poised to work this Saturday evening I would like to be exposed to the maximum opportunity for work, not just waiting on the whim of one employer. I would like to see patterns of opportunity because maybe Saturday night isn't a good time to be working, the local market will pay more for me during the day? And perhaps I want to decide spontaneously when I have time off after studying where the opportunity is, I don't want to be constantly rostered.
• Upshot: your brightest staff members are likely to migrate to the wider marketplace. Slivers-of-Time offers buyers of labour a pool of motivated workers who have chosen to interact directly with the labour market in search of opportunity. They can be inducted for particular employers, but are likely to prize variety, control and taking responsibility for their own development. In the long term do you want to hire the people sitting at home passively waiting for a call from your software, or the individuals who seek out a more challenging worklife?

Why should I train a bunch of people who will be available to a lot of other employers as well?

• Because the fact that they can work for so many organisations makes it worth their while taking their bookings seriously, being available when the market needs them and being content with only small amounts of work from any one source. It's about having flexibility.

What about integration into my ERP, HR, procurement and financial tools?

• All in hand. Every detail of your Slivers-of-Time bookings is recorded on your area of your agency's website. As a backstop, it can be exported as CSV data. Specific interfaces are in the works.

How do I pay for the service?

• The charge for the marketplace is within the hourly rate you pay for a worker, along with on-costs and agency mark up.

Why should I be a first mover with Slivers-of-Time? Why not sit back and let others be the early adopters?

• You could. But there's operational edge to be gained from understanding this newly viable way of expanding a contingent workforce. Right from the start it can help you meet diversity targets and open up new sources of workers. Being an early leader in Slivers-of-Time employment can be good for community relations, PR profile and your status as a favoured employer.

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