This newsletter is distributed to anyone selling in a Slivers-Of-Time
marketplace. Also, to those waiting for a market to start in their area who have registered at www.sliversoftime.com
It will keep you posted on developments in this exciting new way of working. |
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IN THIS ISSUE |
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WAITING FOR SLIVERS: MUM IN THE MARKET
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SLIVERS FUTURES: INVESTING FOR GOOD
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TIP: TRAIN IN ADVANCE
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CASE STUDY: TURNING UP WITH VOLUME | |
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WAITING FOR SLIVERS: |
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Mum in the Market |
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Maria: Mum's the word |
Maria Da Costa, 20, started selling Slivers-of-Time while she was studying Access to Nursing at her local Community College. She explains: “My dream is to be a doctor. But until I started Slivers, I didn’t have any experience of employment.” Since then Maria [Bookings: 23, Hours Sold: 234, Buyers: 6] has been trained and worked for a retailer, a cinema chain, councils and a big Housing Association among others.
She’s a Slivers fan. “I told my friends about it, and I told my Mum”. Her Mother, Clarinda, is raising Maria’s brother alone and wanted some work around that. Now she’s also a Slivers seller [Bookings: 5, Hours Sold: 28, Buyers: 2]. She’s worked in retail and for Newham Council. Maria and Mum live in different parts of London but talk about their Slivers experiences regularly.
At the moment, Maria’s stopped listing availability while she focuses on some tough parts of her course. Mum’s taking a breather as well. But both know they’ll be back to inter-generational Slivers working when they’re ready.
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SLIVERS FUTURES: |
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Investing for good |
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Sarah: feel-good finance
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There’s a new niche emerging in the world of high finance: Social Investing. Most money that’s invested is used just to grow the original capital. But investment managers are finding their clients increasingly want to invest for social good as well as capital gain. Slivers is one beneficiary of this emerging trend.
UnLtd, the UK foundation for Social Entrepreneurs worked with Slivers during 2006/7. Sarah Dodds, their Director of Ventures explains “It’s clear that Slivers’ technology empowers people to take control of their own lives and re-engage in the workplace when otherwise it may have been difficult to do so. Equally it provides an efficient solution for employers needing to access a timely and wider pool of potential talent. We were keen to help.” UnLtd provided funding and business support, including a morning’s session with financiers looking at how to best structure a high-tech Social Enterprise to attract the right kind of socially minded investment.
The key concept is “Blended Return”, commercial and social gain. Although Slivers started with central government funding, it’s going forward as a sustainable Social Enterprise. As Sarah says, “what makes Slivers so interesting is the potential scaleability”. For financiers who demand high potential in their Blended Return, Slivers is an attractive option.
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TIP: |
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Train in advance |
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Cartoon by Shamima Aktar Koli, Slivers-of-Time seller
[Bookings: 86, Hours Sold: 313, Buyers: 4] |
Buying in a Slivers-of-Time Market? Why not put a group of sellers through induction in your business processes? Then you’ll have pre-trained extra workers on tap whenever you need them. |
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CASE STUDY: |
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Turning up with volume |
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A lot of businesses turn to Slivers because they find it hard to predict how many workers they’ll need at a particular point in time. The Contact Centre at the City of London is one of them. CoL is the UK’s smallest Local Authority and has one of the newest Contact Centres. Manager Jo Dufficy explains: “The Contact Centre was launched in January ’07. Before that calls went to specialists within the relevant departments.”
Like most Contact Centres, Jo uses sophisticated software to predict the likely volume of calls for each hour of the day based on historical data. Trouble is: Jo’s centre is so new, and services have been progressively added. There’s little raw data to detect trends. So, Jo has inducted an initial pool of six Slivers sellers to be booked for peaks in call volume. One of them, Shirley Debrah [Bookings: 21, Hours Sold: 129, Buyers: 5] told us: “this is going to be really good experience while I am studying”.
The 15 full time staff in Jo’s team have 3-5 weeks training and cover the range of services offered by the City of London. To make use of Slivers, Jo developed a mini-induction lasting one day that involved training in the technology used and customer service principles. Jo explains: “we’ve focused the Slivers sellers on one service, library enquiries. There’s a high volume of calls so they’ll stay on top of the details even if they only do the odd shift with us”.
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June 2008
Published on the last Friday of the month |
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Slivers-of-Time Working: the basics
Marketplaces for Slivers-of-Time are for:
who wants to work around other things in their life, such as:
-childcare
-studying
-part-time work
-caring for adult
-medical commitments
- Organisations who need top-up workers at short notice, for short periods:
-councils
-caterers
-retailers
-logistics supplier
Benefits:
- Sellers: do whatever odd hours of work they want and quickly build skills, experience and a track record they can print at any time.
- Buyers: access a self-selecting pool of local people who choose to work in a way that demands flexibility and rewards reliability.
Signing up:
Anyone who wants to know when a market-place is starting in their area should enter their details at:
www.sliversoftime.com
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