Flexitimers featured in an article in the Sunday Times yesterday about the growing trend towards portfolio careers i.e. people working on several projects at the same time rather than a full time position with just one company. And the trend is growing hence the new term 'giganomics' where 'professionals rely on series of 'gigs' to make a living'. The concept is not brand new as management guru Charles Handy wrote about this almost 20 years ago. In fact, one of his books The Elephant and the Flea, was a huge inspiration to us when setting up Flexitimers. We believe the focus will be on Income rather jobs, because realistically those full time permanent positions are in short supplya and today more than ever we need to think and work outside the box to keep a career alive, so start buidling that portfolio career as it may be the only option for the short term.

Labels: flexible work, Flexitimers, jobs, Media Coverage, part-time work, smart work, work life balance

Came across a report titled 'Working 5 to 9' published by Enterprise Nation in the UK and it presents some very interesting findings for anyone feeling the pinch these days. Highlights include:
Over 5 million people are earning some form of income from home
Peak hours for accessing the web are from 5 to 11 pm
Over 1/3 of registrations a freelance sites are from 5-9ers
Home based businesses such as ebay sellers are on the serious up

The guide provides tips and anecdotes for anyone thinking of taking the leap and starting a home based business. And the really good news is that almost 3/4 of respondents are considering leaving their full-time/part-time jobs to focus on their business, that's a pretty good sign. So go on, take the leap and download the guide and see where it takes you.

Labels: flexible work, jobs, part-time work, self-employed, smart work

An article called 'Seeing the bigger picture' in the Independent made an interesting case for using career coaches to assist with dealing with change in the 21st century. We all know that the 'job for life' is largely a thing of the past and that's not just to do with the recession but it's more to do with our generation's career promiscuity. We prefer to shop around and indeed move around - upsizing our career prospects with strategic moves every couple of years. However, we're now seeing a very definite move towards outsourcing which will have a profound impact on the traditional employee. Maybe the next opportunity will be contract or freelance - something that exploits your skill set but to a very tight and specific brief. Anyway the article is about using a career coach to identify what you want, why you want it and how to manage your career - worth a read. Times are changing and chance favours the prepared.

Labels: contracting, flexible work, jobs, part-time work, smart work, work

I read with interest about a new website that will promote working from home in the Sunday Business Post the other day. eWorkingIreland.com is the site and when I went into it on Sunday I met a static holding page without an email capture box, instead visitors were asked to email them to be notified of a live date. Well I went along a moment ago to see it is live (a redirect from Centrecom who are maintaining the site) and it's worth a visit. There are some basics like the benefits to eworkers and companies which most of us already know - no commute, less stress, more productivity and higher staff retention and so on. However, I did have a brief look at section on Studies, Report and White Papers and I have to say there's a lot of good content and case studies there. Definitely worth a look.

Labels: contracting, flexible work, part-time work, self-employed, smart work, work life balance

There was an article about us in yesterday's Sunday Independent in the business supplement. Essentially it's about our philosophy about the changing nature of work - you don't have to work in a full-time permanent job to have a career. Benefits for employers too but you can read about that in the Flexible Future. We've received an enormous response to this article not only in registrations to the site from both professionals and employers but also for the many kind and well wishing emails we've received. So thank you all for that. And remember Flexitimers is a person-2-person platform and works best when there are lots of people on it so don't forget to tell your friends: if you pass us on via the site you can enter our fab competition to win a chef in your kitchen for a day who'll cook up a storm and fill your freezer with mouth-watering ready made dinners. Yum.
PS That's a particularly unforgiving picture of both of us but I would say that anyway!

Labels: flexible work, part-time work, work life balance