A flexible approach
Tuesday October 07 2008
In these changing times, not all employers want to hire permanent staff. Enter Flexitimers.com, a new website catering to this very market
A critical factor in the success of any business today is the ability to think flexibly when it comes to its workforce. Previously, flexible working arrangements were regarded as a valuable retention tool by many human-resource (HR) managers who wanted to hold on to their best staff. However, in recent months, flexibility has taken on a whole new meaning.
In the current marketplace, flexible working offers a two-fold benefit: it can allow companies to tap into a talent pool from which they’d otherwise be shut off, and it also reduces the costs associated with hiring permanent and full-time staff.
“Flexibility is something the market is demanding; with the recession biting, the cost of hiring full-time people is actually very high,” says Dervla Cunningham, co-founder of Irish start-up company Flexitimers.com.
“Employers are questioning a lot of full-time positions — there are huge cost savings when people work flexibly. As well as this, in a recession, good employees are needed more than ever,” she adds.
With this in mind, Cunnigham and her business partner Joy Redmond have come up with the concept of establishing a recruitment website aimed solely at ‘flexitimers’, people who are available to work, but not on a permanent basis.
Both women feel the site complements this new way of working. It is aimed at professional people who want to work flexibly, and employers who wish to recruit staff with experience and skill but not on a permanent basis.
She explains: “The nature of work is changing and there’s a whole pool of experienced, professional people of every age who have not been accessed before. Lots of them, such as mothers who’ve had a 15-year professional career but can’t work full time, have huge skills for the marketplace. The actively retired also have so much to give, and there are others, such as contractors and freelancers, who have no real platform in which to find project work.”
Innovation centres throughout the country have become breeding grounds for excellent ideas, and Flexitimers.com is another one they can add to their list. Cunningham and Redmond have been based at the innovation and technology transfer centre at University College Dublin, NovaUCD, for the past few years.
In 2007, they established Flexitimers.com because they believed they saw a niche in the market. Cunningham says the idea came from personal experience.
She is the founder of two previous start-up companies, Zartis.com and Arekibo Communications, the first of which she co-founded as an e-business services company in 1998. It was subsequently sold for IR£18m to Boston-based Breakaway Solutions. The headcount at the firm grew to 70 people.
In 2000, Cunningham co-founded Arekibo Communications, a web design and internet consultancy, where she managed and sold a large number of web projects within the public and private sectors. Although it was a smaller company, Arekibo still had a staff headcount of 16.
She admits she found it difficult to recruit the right staff for both businesses.
“We had a constant need for people, in both the good and bad times. I thought that there had to be a better way of finding staff, and I’ve met so many employers in the same predicament.
“Until now much of the recruitment industry has ignored professionals who want to do something different to the usual nine-to-five job,” she says.
Indeed, Flexitimers.com caters for a multitude of professionals for whom the ‘normal’ working week does not apply. These include those who want classic part-time employment; freelancers working on a project or contract basis; mothers who want to combine a stay-at-home position with a career; and retired individuals who wish to continue working, but on a part-time basis. Even professionals who think they can take on extra work to supplement their income may find this site useful.
Unlike other jobs boards on the market, Flexitimers.com’s unique selling point is its matching technology, which links professionals seeking flexible positions with employers offering this kind of work. It knows its market and does not cater for permanent posts.
Professionals register on the website free of charge, upload their profiles, set their ‘flexibility’ and receive emails about flexible positions that match their requirements. They can also browse the database and apply directly for advertised positions and projects.
From the employer’s perspective, there is a nominal fee to post a position or project on the website and it allows the recruiter to screen, shortlist and contact candidates directly.
Cunningham says there has been a huge reaction to the site from both employers and professionals.
Caption: Joy Redmond and Dervla Cunningham, co-founders of NovaUCD-based Flexitimers.com
© Whitespace Ltd 2008
- Linda Daly
