Flexitimers went along to a brilliant session entitled 'Marketing on a shoestring' kindly organised by Wicklow County Enterprise Board. The seminar was eBranding Guru Krishne De
who had so many great ideas on how to market and sell without any or
much marketing budget. The event shows how truly worthwhile the Enterprise
Boards in Ireland are in helping business upskill and remain competitive.

Labels: Flexitimers, Out and About, Social Media

Dick O'Brien very kindly wrote an article about us in yesterday's Sunday Business Post. It presented Flexitimers as an attractive service for these challenging economic times with its low costs and access to a skilled flexible workforce. Today, we're seeing more and more companies faced with head count cuts yet who still have projects to complete and need interim staff. You can find them on Flexitimers and there's a one-off cost, no daily rate and none of that nasty sales pressure.

Labels: Flexitimers, Media Coverage

We had a very interesting meeting recently with the CEO of Staff Balance, Ciaran McGowan when we spoke of the synergies between our companies to help businesses minimise staffing costs, maximise efficiencies and improve staffing flexibility. We've touched on this topic before, for example in our recent post about the recession being even more of a reason to hire smart. Staff Balance provides a scientific way for companies to deal with the downturn. The original idea for Staff Balance came about in more prosperous times when it was difficult and costly to recruit people but Ciaran is finding it applies equally in these current difficult economic conditions. Today, more than ever, companies are seeking to understand the staffing levels needed to service the business through its peaks and troughs. Their scientific approach saved their most recent client 12% of its total annual payroll and provided the means to predict staffing requirements based on changing business volumes and activity. Armed with that information management can work through Flexitimers to secure their staffing requirements. Makes sense to me.

Labels: Flexitimers, Out and About, Recession, Smart Work

I met my sister for lunch yesterday and she was talking about an executive course she did in the IMI where one of the tutors made that statement about managing professionals. I thought it's pretty accurate because as much as we'd like to have assembly line productivity from our white collar staff, really they don't just output exactly as we like. They need time and experience to reflect, research, think, be strategic and ultimately add value to our organisations. Middle and senior management output can not be quantified and measured daily, we just need to keep on eye on the deliverables over a given period. Flexitimers are perfect for just that because realistically we don't need to micro-manage everything, just set a deliverable and a budget and review when it's done, whether that was done over 3 full working days, 6 mornings or 8x 2 hour chunks is not that relevant provided the deadline is reached. Found the picture on code-muse.com

Labels: Flexible Recruitment, Smart Work

If you're looking for some hugely negative reporting of Ireland's economic climate, then look no further than the article published in the Irish Times last Friday. It covers all the 'low hanging fruit' such as the construction industry, commuter towns, financial services and the retail sector. It was appalling planning and sheer lack of business acumen that saw phenomenal growth in most of these sub-economies in the first place - inflated house prices and its poorly conceived subsequent urban/rural sprawl along with the larger than life home decor sector were never sustainable. The financial services sector encouraged these practices. So yes, it's not that it's all doom and gloom, we're just back to basics - sound business. It reminds me of the post .com bubble bursting of 2000 when funnily enough smart business came to the fore and people stopped investing in spotty teenagers' 'ideas' rather than sound business plans and projections. So, of course there are lay offs and redundancies and the damage that goes with that, but on the other hand - there are still plenty of businesses (small and large) thriving today - unable to keep up with demand and these are Ireland's unsung heroes who weren't offering supernormal profit and an opportunuty to get extremely rich very quickly, no they're profitable enterprises adding value to our economy and society and long may they prosper. And really it's not all doom and gloom, Ireland is hugely entreprenurial and we're going to see lots of new businesses popping up offering services to 'cut costs' and 'work smart' because we have to. Start by using Flexitimers and cut costs and work smart by using a flexible workforce.

Labels: Flexible Recruitment, Flexitimers, Recession, Smart Work