Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Promoting the benefits of contract outsourcing over full-time employment

Rather than just blogging about why full-time permanent employment is not the most effective or efficient way to get work done I’ve decided to take a more direct approach. 

For a couple of months now I’ve been hunting down job positions, advertised on Seek or Trade me, that I recognise as having contract potential and  “applying” for jobs that match my talent, skills and experience – just not in the “traditional” sense of a job application.

Web Wizard Wanted

We require a tertiary-qualified, web savvy, graphic-skilled, customer-focused IT guru who is dedicated to effectively deliver quality online information to our clients and their customers. Our Web Wizard will have skills in the following areas:

• Client-side development
• Web Communication
• Multimedia web scripting
• Server-side development
• Ability to build and maintain web sites to the highest level.
• Ability to design and re-design web site in a co-ordinated approach with marketing, branding and sales focus.
• Strong IT background.
• Well developed and demonstrable graphic art skills
• Demonstrable ability to effectively communicate with people inside and outside of the workplace.
• Client interface.
• Capacity to work on a virtual Greenfield site.
• Must have “The Geek Touch” blended with passion, drive, creativity and ambition to succeed and work towards the next career level

This job opens up a new box of toys to let the Web Wizard’s creative juices flow, and includes animated advertising elements, video streaming, blogging, interactive magazines and advertisements, installation and maintenance of all screen advertising and links, uploading the latest media news as it breaks, uploading the daily newspaper and associated company magazines, and establishing a platform for viable and positive online commercial trade…

Using my CV & cover letter to promote contract outsourcing  as the most effective way to get work done.

Dear John,
 
I read on Seek that you are looking for a web wizard, a talented creative, marketing and people person with technical development and design skills.
 
Kia Ora, my name is Renee Lee and I am an intelligent, motivated and hardworking young women with a passion for helping people, providing solutions and making things happen.
 
I’m looking for a part-time contract role that will allow me the flexibility to pursue the development of my own company which supports and promotes more flexible ways of getting work done. Therefore, I offer for your consideration an alternative to the current full-time position you described.

If I may, based on my seven+ years in online business development, I venture to suggest that you split the role between two or more performance based contractors.

Performance based contracting would allow you to achieve superior results, within the same budget as you suggest and would effectively:

• Allow you to employ the talents of two or more, marketing, design and development specialists
• Delineate responsibility for performance to improve focus, output and productivity
• Provide a performance incentive
• Expand your available talent resources

As a business catalyst, I can provide you a talented team of online specialists to fulfil the work requirements you outline within your  budget…please keep me in mind should you consider a collaborative, talented, team approach an effective and efficient means to accomplish the work you envision for this role. For more information please feel free to check out some links that reflect another part of the work I do:-
 
www.twitter.com/lee0007
www.twitter.com/time_trade
www.twitter.com/350_nz
 
Thank you for taking the time to consider a more flexible approach to achieveing the results your require. I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Kind reagrds,
 
 
Renee Lee
Co Founder & Catalyst
Worknow Ltd
+64 21 18 300 50
+64 3 455 3901
www.worknow.co.nz

Changing the employment mindset is going to take a whole lot of time and letters of rejection but I can handle the rejection because every seed planted is a potential future collaborator.

Connecting Government & SME’S

Today’s social networking tools will foster and harness the collective potential of existing communities and distributed work groups by helping us to create, connect and collaborate as project teams, regardless of time or place. They need simply be applied by private business’ in conjunction with government to enhance New Zealand’s productivity.

No longer limited by time or place or disadvantaged by the costs of travel, the concept of using networking tools to facilitate government procurement offers SME’s and dispersed project teams the ability to compete with larger corporations at an unprecedented level.

Job Summit Agenda for Action

The Minister of Commerce, in consultation with Ministers of Finance, Economic Development and State Services are looking to lead the rapid reform government of procurement processes to improve access for small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s). Such reform looks to mirror the actions taken by the Australian government to boost production and jobs.

Nearly $4 billion worth of NSW government goods and services including uniforms, cars and even trains, will have to be sourced from Australian companies in order to boost local production and jobs, in an upcoming budget announcement that has been welcomed by Australian unions.

Maritime Union of New Zealand General Secretary Trevor Hanson says this idea should be adopted immediately in New Zealand.

“We have watched the collapse of LWR recently with the loss of large numbers of jobs – so why are we not insisting that Government requirements for uniforms and clothing go through this and other local companies?” Source

At Worknow we support the move by government to reform the procurement process and are developing an online marketplace to help SME’s connect with such work opportunities.

Green Jobs of the Future

Governments including the USA and Australia are touting “green collar” jobs as a way to create new forms of work and aid economic recovery. The ever expanding Green sector encompasses industry and fields from engineering and planning to science and management, from construction to manufacturing and retail of alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and wave energy.

Copenhagen Climate Summit 2009

This year the environment will receive some serious attention with the international effort to address climate change culminating with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, 7-18 December.

Already campaigns supporting environmental reform are in full swing. Global Environmental, Humanitarian and Animal Welfare organisations are taking a united stand to raise awareness on climate change.

Celebrities encourage people to Sign on with slogans from the likes of Ex NIWA Jim Salinger stating “The Science is bloody obvious”.

And with a ground swell of support, grass-root movements such as 350Aotearoa freeze sees people of all ages and backgrounds taking a statue like stand, to raise awareness and get people to question “what’s all this about?”

Growth of Contract Jobs in Green Market

Indeed, increased environmental awareness bodes well for the emerging Green industry which is already proving that it can create new jobs. Not only is the expanding industry creating “employment” but contract work too.

The green market has historically been one of permanent job placements…However, as the field broadens we are seeing more opportunities for contractors as engineers become more involved in the space, innovation creates short-term opportunities and many organisations opt for a more flexible workforce in light of the uncertainty of economic downturn. Source

While the UK is heralding the flexibility  and creativity, for which contractors are known, as the potential savior of UK economy the benefits of outsourcing and contract work are also being recognised here in Aotearoa. Hence, it is likely that with the growth of Green Industry, we too will experience growth in the number of contract opportunities.

Contractors Marketplace

At Worknow we support  and encourage a more flexible, entrepreneurial work ethic and are here to help contractors find, connect and collaborate on project work opportunities.

Reducing Barriers to Productivity

Social networking tools will play an important role in the future of work organisation by helping us to create, connect and collaborate as project teams, regardless of time or place.

As workers move toward contracting and business’ take the opportunity to outsource work to increase productivity new methods of organising and facilitating work will arise.

Institutional “containment” as we know will cease to exist and with it the barriers to productivity that stalled the growth and development of our people and businesses.

Networking Tools & Platforms

Today’s social media tools and network platforms have created an environment where communication, collaboration and coordination are already in use. They need simply be applied in business to make it quicker and easier to get work done.

No longer limited by time or place or disadvantaged by the costs of travel, the concept of using networking tools to facilitate projects begins a paradigm shift in the way we think about and accomplish work.

IT and business technology will take center stage in the post-recession economy. The crisis…will sweep away organizations that do not grasp the importance of and utilize social network technologies.

Innovation will be defined by networks, [collaborating to] work with partners or competitors or customers using social technologies. George Colony, CEO of Forrester.

The way we work is changing and with it comes a shift in power, away from the corporate hierarchy that directed and controlled productivity in the past towards the innovative, more flexible contract workers that are ready and able to work, as needed.

Connect & Collaborate with Worknow

Networking tools and platforms give individual contractors and dispersed project teams the ability to compete with institutions at an unprecedented level. At Worknow we support this more flexible, entrepreneurial work ethic and are here to help contractors find, connect and collaborate on project work opportunities..

Innovation in a recession

The UK is heralding the flexibility & creativity, for which contractors are known, as the potential savior of UK economy.

UK organisations start to appreciate the benefits of a flexible contractor workforce, and …the positive impact interim executives and IT contractors are having in achieving technology innovation within large organisations, despite reduced budgets.

“The UK workforce has demonstrated unprecedented flexibility during this recession,” comments Keep Britain Working founder James Reed, “allowing organisations to explore a whole range of cost-cutting responses, other than relying solely on redundancies.”

The benefits of outsourcing and contract work are also being recognised here in Aotearoa as 63% of White-collar New Zealander’s look to sacrifice the security of nine-to-five salaries in order to head out on their own as private contractors.

As companies continue to let staff go and struggle to contain costs in the face of falling profitability both workers and employers are beginning to recognise that full-time permanent employment is not necessarily the most effective or efficient way to get work done.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Projects & Contract Work

By outsourcing work to private contractors businesses can get work done and maintain productivity while minimising payroll expense. While “employment” may by comparison seem safer, more secure, working as a private contractor also promises better pay and the flexibility to live a more balanced, family orientated lifestyle.

Future Models of Flexible Work

At Worknow we support a more entrepreneurial work ethic and are developing ways to help people find and connect with project contract work opportunities.

Integrity of Communication

I came to odds once, with a baby boomer manager, who directed me to “spin” some benefits in a communication to  potential clients that I had been working with.

“It’s marketing 101,” she insisted, when I defended my copy as being honest and direct. There were no benefits for the client that I could fathom and when I raised this point she urged that I had best “learn how to spin” marketing copy.

“So you want me to learn to lie,” I thought.

In response I told her that I valued open, honest communication and while I was happy for my draft to be altered, I would not put my name to a communication that I did not support or believe.

Now, we both cared about the project but that I did not “comply” with her direction was solely a values based decision. I did not want to comprise my being open and honest  to learn how to “spin”  invented benefits for our clients.

I perhaps naively thought such values would be respected but as time showed,  she saw me as creating barriers to getting work done rather than being a person of integrity.

Baby Boomer vs Generation Y

In retrospect it is very clear that our generational differences, Baby Boomer vs Gen Y were at the root of our conflict:

[Gen Y are] are less afraid to confront and discuss issues with their peers and their superiors.

And how does this freedom and authenticity translate into the business world? It doesn’t.

It would crush the carefully constructed hierarchical structure to pieces. It’s a strange and obscure network of relationships that determines the real power in businesses.

If everything is said candidly and openly, this network loses its function. People lose their power. Read Source

Gen Y’s need for Authenticity

Because Gen Y want to feel that we work to contribute to something meaningful in this instance the idea of  inventing the truth,  a.k.a lying, was in stark contrast to my personal need for authenticity yet to my manager it was a learned and acceptable way to convey one’s point.

• For me, voicing my personal values, was part of being true to myself  but perhaps my manager considered it  insubordinate and a threat to her authority.
• For my generation (and other people)  working together  involves connecting and collaborating but many of the old school still adhere to the hierarchical methods of directing and controlling which were once the status quo.
• Consequently, to challenge my managers perspective, and assumed authority to direct my “compliance” was to risk my position within the heirarchy.

However, what must be understood about Gen Y is that our need for authenticity is a much stronger driving force than the false sense of security promoted by “employment”.

We are a generation willing to take risks, for ourselves and the things we believe in, which is a symptom of our stronger entrepreneurial tendencies.

Gen Y Perspective

While I am not exactly objective about the scenario related here it is simply a means to discuss what I see as the generational mindset difference between “manager employee” relationships of the past and the more entrepreneurial, collaborative teams of our future.

To qualify my point of view, I recognise that in some industries “employment” will always remain the most effective form of getting work done, retail for instance.

But I believe it is time to recognise that many forms of work in our knowledge economy  – web development, design and many creative tasks – need no longer operate as a manager employee relationship.

Indeed, contract outsourcing this type of work will increase productivity and save companies time and money by facilitating a more flexible, motivating work environment for people with specialised talent and skill.