What's the downside?

Slivers-of-Time marketplaces can contribute to a more efficient labour market and spread work around. If that becomes entrenched there will inevitably be losers as well as winners. However, it's important to assess the potential impact of these marketplaces alongside other likely developments impacting the workforce.

The key downsides to Slivers-of-Time Working are generally identified as:

1. It kills overtime
2. It contributes to casualisation of labour
3. It will always be insecure
4. It kills full time jobs
5. It is bad for the informal economy
6. It penalises the computer-phobic
7. It is bad for unions

1) It kills overtime

• The boss needs extra work done in a hurry? He's currently likely to call on an existing staff member then either: (a) pay over the normal rate for a few hours extra work (b) demand unpaid overtime. Option A can be appreciated by employees. Option B is great for companies. The TUC estimate £23bn of unpaid overtime is worked each year in the UK.
• A developed market for Slivers-of-Time that includes individuals who have worked their way up the market erodes the justification for overtime. It enables an organisation to instantly purchase a few hours from flexible, motivated, low overhead, people who have a track record of multiple types of work. If the need for extra help is ongoing, the economics of inducting a bunch of top-up local workers to be hired as needed are likely to be more attractive than paying T+0.5 or T+1 to the existing workforce.
• That's bad for companies used to free work time and households benefiting for large amounts of paid work being pushed towards a small pool of people.

2) It contributes to casualisation of labour

• Slivers-of-Time is sometimes seen as another nail in the coffin of a job-for-life. But there's a lot of other ironmongery already in that casket. Jobs at the lower end of the economy have been progressively de-skilled with workers reduced to inputting data into computers so centralized decision making rules can be applied. This is now cheaper than training staff to think. Much low-end work is now unrewarding with little affinity between workers and employer. Unsurprisingly, increasing numbers of workers want promiscuity in their relationship with the labour market, rather than old style monogamy that spans decades.
• Employers too have an agenda around workforce flexibility. Enhanced workforce scheduling tools are crossing the Atlantic. They allow corporate employers to schedule their workers with increasing efficiency and monitor the performance of each person. These tools can increase flexibility for individual workers but the over-riding driver has to be the needs of the employer. Such systems work against smaller employers who have less resource and can't schedule with the same efficiency, so their costs become disproportionately higher.
• As workforce management software proliferates choices for workers can narrow. Suppose you work for BigCo that employs you for 35 hours a week of which 20 are fixed and the other 15 scheduled around your requests for time off in BigCo's employee portal. Now suppose you want to go part-time with BigCo and also work partially for MegaCorp, who also want to roster you very efficiently around your other commitments and their needs. Now you have two diaries of your availability to maintain. Get a booking in one and you must take out that availability in the other.
• Now imagine a marketplace such as call centre agents in Glasgow. There are ten or more large call centres around Clydeside. Each of them might want access to a pool of top-up agents who are flexible, reliable and cost effective. But if you want to be selling in that way you'll have to maintain ten online diaries, clearing nine of them every time you get a booking. You will have become a very efficiently scheduled resource for each enterprise but you'll have no overview of the market for your services, little reward for reliability and limited exposure to new opportunities.
• This scenario is on it's way. $1.5bn is expected to be spent on Workforce Scheduling Tools in the call centre sector alone in the next few years.
• Slivers-of-Time marketplaces are the alternative. They allow any seller to be exposed to an ever changing array of employers, opportunities and skills on their own terms. They force employers into competition for individuals who are consistently reliable, however lowly the work they do. But they allow anyone into the market to start climbing the rankings so unrealistic pricing isn't an option.
• These are not resource scheduling systems but true marketplaces that reflect the willingness of any individual to work in their own way. They serve BigCo and its tiny competitors equally. If successful they will increase the fragmentation of work, but they drive a particularly humane and efficient form of casualisation.

3) It will always be insecure

• True, there are no guarantees of on-going work in these markets. But those that sell their time this way are exposed to multiple employers, stay up to date in many types of work and can quickly develop a tangible track record demonstrating flexibility and reliability.
• Now suppose there is a downturn in the labour market. So, companies cut back on their buying of spare hours. But those same companies are likely to start laying off their lower-level workers. Compare the position of two individuals: Worker A who has been made redundant after 5 years as a kitchen porter in a catering company and Worker B who has spent the same period selling Slivers-of-Time.
• Worker A may get a glowing reference (and his redundancy money) but he has a limited skillset and only subjective evidence of his value as an employee. In contrast, Worker B could have an objective, instantly printed out, track record of hundreds of bookings for dozens of employers in multiple sectors. As he became more and more reliable it is likely he would have been inducted by many organizations. His skill base, personal responsibility and motivation have been developed constantly. Who is more likely to get a new job first?

4) It will kill full time jobs

• There is no evidence to support this view. A full time worker will always be cheaper hour-by-hour because of the agency charges and seller's booking-specific mark ups for each Slivers-of-Time hour. Very few organisations have so little core knowledge that they can exist with a totally fluid workforce.
• Where there could be a threat is in jobs that are created to fulfil only a partial requirement. For example, someone who is paid for a 20 hour week of formal part-time work but is only really required for 12 of those hours. Such jobs are already precarious and would suffer if a more efficient marketplace became available locally.

5) It is bad for the informal economy

• It is sometimes argued that the informal economy is not entirely a force for bad. It provides entry level work for example, and fosters social networks in deprived areas. Slivers-of-Time Working is seen by many as a legitimate alternative to cash-in-hand working. It can offer the same levels of flexibility and control but does bring the individual into the mainstream economy. If they can penetrate households in areas of deprivation these new markets should begin to undermine illegal working.

6) It penalises the computer-phobic

• The efficiencies of this way of working are only viable if based on technology. But they can also provide an incentive to take up computer use. They can also be a means of purchasing very cost effective one-on-one training for potential sellers of spare hours.
• Of more concern is potential disadvantaging of those who find it hard to use a computer for medical reasons. The complex information these marketplaces need to take in, for example around an individual's hours of availability for work today, is best input through graphical interfaces. These won't necessarily work as well with screen readers for the visually impaired or non-standard input devices for those with physical disabilities. A long-term solution is being sought.

7) It is bad for unions

• That depends on the attitude of the unions. Unions have a potential role in this new way of working. They can negotiate conditions of work or promote workforce capacity. Union dues can be tithed from booking fees automatically if sellers wish. The world of work is evolving in ways that include Slivers-of-Time. Few in the union movement see that as evidence that protection of workers is no longer required.
• The TUC have urged union activists to work with these emerging marketplaces: see "Get Ready for Slivers-of-Time Working" in their Changing Times Newsletter. It has also been given a place in the Union Ideas Network.

• Background to Slivers-of-Time Working