Worklessness

Even the most mature Slivers-of-Time market would never be an all encompassing cure for worklessness. It only directly works for people who have enough nous to help themselves. But it is another tool-in-the-box for helping individuals engage with the labour market.

Promoted by Jobcentres, it could help people who can only work the Slivers-of-Time way. Or in providing personalised support for the hardest to help. Whichever way these marketplaces are used, their depth of reporting and analysis is a given.

• What Slivers-of-Time can do for sellers

There are four entrenched problems within the worklessness agenda where these new marketplaces could contribute to a solution:

1. People who can't be available for a conventional job
2. Clients who are intimidated by a job
3. Breaking the coercion cycle
4. Personalised support workers

1) People who can't be available for a conventional job

• Many people are excluded from the workforce because they have demands on their time that make it hard for them to hold down a job. Looking after children is one such issue. Current solutions tend to focus on either: (a) finding childcare that allows the mother to leave the house (b) trying to fit the mother into pre-determined "family friendly" shift patterns that may not suit her individual requirements.
• Slivers-of-Time working is an alternative. It revolves around the mother's decisions about when to work and allows her to make her children priority number one with work fitting around it.

• Selling Slivers-of-Time on benefits

2) Clients who are intimidated by a job

• 
  It can be hard for 9-5 lifers to grasp, but some people find committing to a job deeply scary. Imagine their advisor was able to show them patterns of demand for their services in their area for 2-3 hour bookings. Suppose the client could then be supported through the first such booking this afternoon (see personalised support workers below) and come in to discuss it afterwards. Only then is the subject of maybe another booking next week raised.
• This is a personalised, highly cost effective, ramp into the workforce. It requires no commitment extending beyond today. It can offer cheap, intensive, support. Best of all, it ensures the client is a genuinely useful resource for the employer. They've been booked because there is a need and a job for them to do, if only for 2 hours. They are not simply sent along by the Jobcentre or a JCP provider and expected to establish themselves as a long term fixture from the moment they walk through the door.

• How it works for sellers

3) Breaking the coercion cycle

• Current DWP targets focus on "sustainable job outcomes". Generally that means an unemployed client holding down a job of at least 16 hours for at least 13 weeks. Anecdotal evidence suggests these metrics produce a lot of "churn": individuals who come back onto benefits after 13 weeks of work and go through the process of placement again.
• Slivers-of-Time markets don't work well in a coercion model. But they could be an attractive alternative offered to those who are willing to make some effort for themselves as an alternative to being slotted into a low status position because their advisor has targets to meet.

• The future of benefits

4) Personalised support workers

Some clients are far removed from the workforce and need support to even reach home base in their interaction with the labour market. Any JCP provider able to access a pool of vetted, trained, support workers could very cheaply offer personalised support that might include:

• A weekly meeting at the time/public place of the client's choosing to fill out a form reviewing progress
• One-on-one coaching in how to use a PC and sell Slivers-of-Time
• A support worker coming along to the first hour of their first 5 bookings

• Using Slivers-of-Time support workers
• The future of public services