Skills

Slivers-of-Time Working forges new real-world learning. It incentivises employers to increase the number of people they train. In time, the skills agenda may productively refocus away from conventional jobs to make individuals who want to work in their own way as attractive to buyers as possible.

Three factors have emerged from discussions on how the Skills agenda might evolve to embrace Slivers-of-Time Working:

  1. Slivers-of-Time workers quickly accumulate soft skills
  2. The economics of employer training change
  3. The skills agenda could formalize Slivers-of-Time Work

1) Slivers-of-Time Workers quickly accumulate soft skills

  • what employers look forResearch for the Department of Work & Pensions shows the extent to which employers value skills such as flexibility, communications and ability to absorb instructions over formal qualifications.
  • Anyone choosing to work lots of short periods for multiple employers at different locations is going to acquire these abilities as they move up through the Slivers-of-Time market. Within 2 weeks they could have absorbed 6 types of work having made their mark at 6 employers after finding their way to 6 different places of work.
  • Government commissioned market research shows the extent to which people want to work this way. The resourcefulness required could provide a far better grounding for career building than many weeks of working the same old Same Old.

2) The economics of employer training change.

  • Employers can induct a pool of Slivers-of-Time sellers then buy their hours as required. Take a supermarket for example. Instead of just training new full-time or part-time staff, they might additionally bring in 30 people with a good track record of Slivers-of-Time selling and living nearby for 2 hour's paid induction.
  • skills Those people are then highlighted whenever the manager, or her staff, access the marketplace. Checkout lines unacceptably long? Instantly hire 3 locals for the next two hours knowing they've already passed the company's training requirements.
  • Of course, you may never hire some of the 30 you inducted, but the flexibility gained outweighs the cost of a few surplus people trained as part of a group. For the individuals it's one more skill; each can be prepared for future work by multiple local employers.

3) The skills agenda could formalise Slivers-of-Time Working

  • skills Current LSC (Learning & Skills Council) targets are structured around traditional work. If ultra-fragmented working takes off, their overall objectives may be better served by also targeting people who can not, or would rather not, hold down a conventional job. They could be helped prepare for multiple types of work.
  • In this scenario an individual who wants to work Slivers-of-Time could be offered a range of basic skills. Perhaps a food hygiene certificate, contact centre readiness and entry level security training. It may be that Slivers-of-Time support workers are used as trainers. And recipients may earn increased training by successfully completing bookings in their local market so the more work they do and the more reliable they are the greater the range of basic skills they have to offer; a virtuous circle of increased opportunity.

If the value of this way of working becomes unquestioned, local area regeneration plans could include creating an attractive Slivers-of-Time resource for incoming employers. That would entail offering the kind of package described above for all residents of a deprived area.

What's the need?