Combat skills shortage with outsourcing and part-timers
Tips for outsourcing
1. Define the scope of the job. This will give you a more accurate idea of how much the job should cost.2. Spell out liability arrangements. If something goes wrong, the outsourcing contract should state the extent to which either party is liable.
2. Spell out liability arrangements. If something goes wrong, the outsourcing contract should state the extent to which either party is liable.
3. Look after intellectual property. If it’s important to your business, have IP assigned to you in black and white so you own it outright.
4. Identify key performance indicators. Make sure both parties agree on performance standards prior to entering an arrangement.
5. Know how to end it. Set out a procedure that will allow either party to end the agreement and state each party’s obligations for this point.
Online solutions to the skills shortage
Employ and recruit part-timers
Your Parttime Workforce (www.yourparttimeworkforce.com.au)
Your Parttime Workforce is an employment matching service specialising in the part-time workforce, both for employers looking to fill a part-time role and candidates looking for part-time positions. Candidates create thei
r own profile outlining what they’re looking for in a role and employers are free to browse the talent pool.
When an employer wishes to contact a candidate, they pay to contact as many candidates as they like in a month. Employers can actively advertise jobs for a small fee. Recruiters are also welcome to use the site to find suitable candidates and advertise positions.
Offering part-time work gives businesses access to those employees who may otherwise remove themselves completely from the workforce, such as parents or retirees. Capturing this pool of talent means the business has to be flexible, but the rewards include happier staff, experienced employees who won’t cost you the earth, and employment longevity.
Founders Rhonda Sermon and Shereen Jolly saw that other employment resources were either too expensive or not targeted enough to find good part-time staff. A part-timer herself, Sermon saw the clear benefits of part-time work and says they designed the site to focus on matching part-time work with employees seeking stable employment without the long hours.
“When you have part-time workers, they’re much happier to work on a broader role and they give you so much more added value,” she believes. “If you’re giving them an opportunity to work and still balance the rest of their life, it enhances their life. A lot of people really enjoy going to work for those few days a week and if you have people enjoying their work, they stay longer.”
Looking for jobs to outsource
Service Seeking (www.serviceseeking.com.au)
The best way to describe Service Seeking is ‘an eBay for services’. If you’re a business looking for a job to outsource—whether it’s a project or an ongoing contract—you post up the particulars of the job and wait for bids to come in. Where it differs from eBay is in the closing: the seeker has the autonomy to choose which bid to accept, rather than accepting tenders by price.
To get the most from the service, co-founder Oliver Pennington suggests that seekers give as much detail as possible: “The customer who puts in a good quality brief for what they want done will get a better quality response from the bidders; if they place an ambiguous job brief they tend to get a really poor response.”
Bidders that quote a price, specify what’s included for that price and appeal to the seeker’s value perception usually fare best, he adds. Pennington’s cleaner clinched the job when she offered to cook one meal a week on top of cleaning duties.
For the wary seeker or bidder, the transparency of the feedback system will assuage doubts about parties in the transaction.
Casual labour market
PloyMe (www.Ployme.com.au)
The increased casualisation of the labour market is a trend PloyMe is keen to capitalise on. The site calls itself the ‘online dating version of the temporary/casual job market’ and basically matches shifts with available workers. include childcare, hospitality, labouring and administration.
“We allow anyone who want Industries to pick up some extra hours of work to log when they’re available to work, how far they’re willing to travel and the types of jobs they want to do. When someone searches through the database they can find those people and offer them shifts or contracts,” says managing director Matt Kesby. “It’s a way of tapping into that latent pool of talent.”
The site features an alert system so when a shift comes up that a suitable worker can fill, the employer receives a shortlist, and can then SMS the worker. The first worker to respond affirmatively attains the shift.
Kesby says 90 percent of workers already have a job and are just looking to pick up more, which works well for employers struggling with the skills shortage or those who need to fill shifts because of sick employees.