Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Trust & Collaboration

Companies and leaders in today’s knowledge economy are beginning to recognise that traditional command and control methods of leadership are no longer the most effective way to inspire the best from people. Instead there’s a growing recognition that networked collaboration is the way of the future.

Ok, I am bias because collaboration is one of our founding values and I have issues with 80’s management theory. Words like power and  control, creep me out.

But no use complaining right, one must act hence our new venture - Worknow - where we connect talented people willing to trust and collaborate with each other and support flexible forms of work such as contract, project, freelance, and volunteer work.

Now, I noticed recently my tendency to sing about co-operation when contemplating ways to collaborate which raises two questions.

Are collaboration and cooperation the same thing?

They are defined quite differently by www.dictionary.com 

co⋅op⋅er⋅a⋅tion[koh-op-uh-rey-shuhn]

NOUN

1. an act or instance of working or acting together for a common purpose or benefit; joint action.

2. more or less active assistance from a person, organization, etc.: We sought the cooperation of various civic leaders. 

3. willingness to cooperate: to indicate cooperation. 

4. Economics. the combination of persons for purposes of production, purchase, or distribution for their joint benefit: producers’ cooperation; consumers’ cooperation. 

5. Sociology. activity shared for mutual benefit.

6. Ecology. mutually beneficial interaction among organisms living in a limited area.

VS

col⋅lab⋅o⋅ra⋅tion[kuh-lab-uh-rey-shuhn]

NOUN 

1. the act or process of collaborating.

2. a product resulting from collaboration: This dictionary is a collaboration of many minds.

Yet, I always “assumed” an interdependence becasue by my understanding effective collaboration requires co-operation. But now to the next question, which speaks even greater volumes about my education…

Why this song? “Co-operation, makes it happen. Co operation, working together”

 Clearly it was a song lyric from somewhere and when I goggled the lyrics I was not at all surprised to find that its actually one of the regular skits from an influential childhood programme…go on, take a guess. Here’s a clue. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12…

Yes, apparently my entire philosophy around collaboration stems from the Muppet’s on Sesame Street. Which in turn supports my belief that early education is a great place to develop a more collaborative and entrepreneurial culture.

Co-operation … makes it happen

Co-operation … working together

Dig it!

Co-operation … makes it happen

Co-operation … working together

Muppet In Shades:

I saw these crazy dudes

And they went out on the street

They were cleanin’ out the empty lot

And makin’ it neat

I said, “Man is this cool

What you tryin’ to do?”

They said, “Makin’ a garden

For me and for you.”

They said:

All:

Hey man, join us

Come on, let’s go

Together we can make a pretty garden grow

Girl: I’ll dig a hole

Guy: And I’ll plant a seed

Together: And we can add the water

That all growin’ things need

All:

Co-operation … makes it happen

Co-operation … working together

Dig it!

Co-operation … makes it happen

Co-operation … working together

metrolyrics.com

Not only do I heed the advice of muppets, I’m also involved with community gardens.  Scary, influential stuff our early childhood education.

Talents, we all have them

This simple fact is the basis for forming Worknow. Whether as a freelance contractor, outsourced supplier, trades person or community volunteer we simply wanted to make it easier for people to find, connect and work together.

Time Trade especially, is based on recognising that we all have talents that could be used to help others and recognises that networking technology has made it easier than ever to match need with talent.

From teaching someone a new laungage, to walking a dog, weeding a garden or lending a listening ear – someone somewhere, often closer than you think, needs exactly what you have.

What one talent could you share to help others?

Time, most precious

Time is our common, finite resource, which is what makes it such an effective measure of value. What you choose to do with your time, defines who you are and what we are suggesting is that by giving it away helping others, you not only become a contributing citizen but by law of karma, you may find it comes back to you when you most need it.

We are Social Creatures, we need Community

We believe todays networking technology can help harness the collective potential of communities, groups and dispersed teams. Indeed our Worknow team is evidence that todays social networking tools can bring people together to collaborate and create new projects, business and we hope work.

A social network [online community] enables participants to make themselves known to one another and to communicate more effectively. It allows one to establish their identity online, to post their credentials, and to provide other information for others to see. It also can track correspondence and behavior within the network, establishing one’s reputation and enabling an impersonal medium to serve as a tool for building a matrix of trusting relationships that can lead to collaboration and coordinated action on many levels Tom Greco

We are gathering a community of talented people willing to collaborate and build shared intelligence in more entrepreneurial and flexible ways. I invite you to join our journey today by adding your talents to the collective potential.

I chose to study extramurally so that I could apply my business education across a range of business settings and discover where my talents lay.

However, when I finally completed my degree and set out to find full-time employment (my apprenticeship in business ownership) potenial employers began to question why I had already worked in so many roles.

Back in 2003, before it became widely recognised as a common Gen Y work trait, my CV already listed more roles over five years than my mum held over a thirty year working life:-

• Gymnastics Instructor, Tauranga YMCA
• Holiday Programme Leader, Tauranga YMCA
• Civil & Criminal Law Clerk, Tauranga District Court
• General Administration & Customer Service, FIL Agrichemical
• Part Time Financial Administration, Harmer Parr Financial Planners
• Market Research Contract, Private Interests
• Junior Reporter, Oceansider Community News
• Frontline Sales, Greenpeace
• Business Developer, Bartercard NZ
• Bay of Plenty Marketing Representative, Hewlett Packard

The problem was full time study combined with working 30+hours a week, rather than proving a strong work ethic or general intelligence, indicated to potential employers a lack of loyalty or worse. Fours year study, did little to prove my discipline or perserverance, all it served was to get me on a level playing feild with every other graduate.

WorkNoWorKnow

It’s a conundrum that many students face.

• First we must choose either to Work Now which research shows will hinder future long-term prospects or
• Forego earnings and take on student debt in order to be in the “Know” and compete for jobs that require no more than a high school education.

On choosing the second option – education and the pursuit of knowledge – we still must Work Now to get by in more than survival mode. Yet in most cases the type of work we can get  – hospo, cleaning, labouring – does  almost nothing to reflect our true intelligence, or inherent talents.

And in some cases, like my own, even a series of respectable contract jobs can have negative connotations for employers, which begs the question; would I have been better to choose No Work over Work Now?

But of course if you choose the No Work option and elect to focus on study then when you step out in to the working world, which is where the education path leads for most people, you will lack the “work expereince” needed to land the jobs that you’ve studied so hard and long to attain. In the words of Tom Petty

Situation no win
Rush for a change of atmosphere

Work Study Transition

Of the three option 1) work or 2) study or 3) work and study it is easy to recommend that the best option, by far is #3

• Do try and find contract work relevant to your degree while studying so that you can gain the work expereince you need to apply your education out in the work force.
• If you can’t find paid work expereince, then volunteer with a company that interests you. Volunteering looks great on anyone’s CV and can open doors to work opportunities that are not advertised on seek, trademe jobs or student job search.

Employment is not our only option. Business creation, while higer risk is the much more rewarding alternative.

Here at WorkNow we encourage and support a more entrepreneurial work ethic. Whether you’re starting out and need work expereince or have honed your talent and skills and just need to connect with the right work opportunities, we can help. Register today with our talent community and foster your collective potential.

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.

Contract Work New Zealand

New Zealand’s workforce is showing our ability to adapt and do things differently by considering contract work in favour of taking on the lower paid, less fulfilling full-time roles on offer. According to the online survey conducted internationally by recruitment firm Robert Walters:-

White-collar New Zealander’s are preparing to sacrifice the security of nine-to-five salaries to head out on their own as private contractors – in unprecedented numbers.

Nearly two out of three professionals (63 per cent) say they would be happy to take on a contract role, a new survey shows. That is higher than anywhere in the world except in Britain. Read Article NZ Hearld

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 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 offer security of income and contract work is comparatively higher risk, 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.

Part-time, job share and flexible work options offer a solution to increasing our levels of work productivity.

“…In 2006 New Zealand’s level of labour productivity ranked 22nd out of 30 in the OECD – which means that an hour of work generates 30% less income in New Zealand than it does in Australia. It’s no surprise then that the average wage in Australia is about a third higher. If we want good jobs and higher incomes we have to keep a focus on productivity.”John Whitehead, Secretary to the Treasury -  2009 Job Summit

Increasing work productivity

So what do we need to do now to increase productivity and create quality jobs? We need to accept that it it is time to change the way that work is organised. It is time to develop a new perspective on what quality work means and how it is accomplished. To build on our strengths, we need to foster and support a more entrepreneurial approach to creating and finding work.

Changing the Status Quo on Full Time Permanent Jobs with outsourcing and flexible work organisation

Our productivity has fallen because the full-time permanent orientation to work, which we accept as the status quo, hinders our ability to maximise existing skill and talent.

If you know of anyone that has spent time “looking busy” as opposed to actually being busy then you can see that there is scope for increasing our productivity simply by changing the way people work.

Consider outsourcing work. When people are hired to work rather than fill a 40hour per week job role then work productivity increases in direct proportion to the hours spent “working” to earn a living versus “keeping busy” to justify our wage or salary.

Towards a more entrepreneurial work ethic

This type of suggested change has been a long time coming as shown by this statement which was written at the end of  another recession about 15 years ago;-

“…THE END OF THE JOB As a way of organizing work, it is a social artifact that has outlived its usefulness. Its demise confronts everyone with unfamiliar risks — and rich opportunities… The modern world is on the verge of another huge leap in creativity and productivity, but the job is not going to be part of tomorrow’s economic reality.

There still is and will always be enormous amounts of work to do, but it is not going to be contained in the familiar envelopes we call jobs. The conditions that created jobs 200 years ago — mass production and the large organization — are disappearing.

TO AN EXTENT that few people have recognized, our organizational world is no longer a pattern of jobs…In place of jobs, there are part-time and temporary work situations. That change is symptomatic of a deeper change that is subtler but more profound. The deeper change is this:

Today’s organization is rapidly being transformed from a structure built out of jobs into a field of work needing to be done

FORTUNE MAGAZINE September 19, 1994 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1994/09/19/79751/index.htm

What William Bridges noted at the end of the last US recession is even more true today. The full-time permanent employment role in today’s work society is not the most effective of efficient way to get work done.

Yet the acceptance of outsourced, freelance, part-time, job share and flexible work requires a change in culture and mind. Sure you can look to create job share opportunities but if you set them up under the standards of the current regime then they’re destined to achieve mediocre results, at best.

For example, I saw a part-time job advertised on seek recently for a company that I am familiar with. It was actually a job-share role and when I asked my friend, who was to begin sharing her role “how’s the search going for the new admin?” I was not surprised to find that there had been only one? or was that none, no applications for the position. And we both knew why.

The part-time role was advertised with a job description outlining required competencies, responsibilities tasks and “duties as required” in the familiar package of a job description.

Clearly the author had failed to recgnise, as we both did, that no one would want to take on a part-time role that came with full-time job responsibilities and expectations. It is simply assumed, considering the lower financial benefits of part-time work, that these roles will be more flexible, more of a mutually beneficial “agreement to work together” than in the nature of a contractually obligated employee.

The old guard had simply failed to tailor the advertisement to their market and in doing so wasted money, time and perhaps more damagingly indicated that the company was founded on a culture that still adhered to the 80’s organisational work hierarchy, despite effort to appear flexible.

Worknow is designed to promote and connect people with work rather than jobs.

We support a more entrepreneurial mindset and want to encourage people to connect with work in more flexible, effective and affordable ways.

Outsourcing work is a great way to get work done without putting people on your payroll.

The specialist expertise held within the web development industry is a good example of when it is more cost effective to outsource solutions.
In fact finding the right person for the job, outside of your company, will most likely save you time and money but how exactly do you find them?

Finding the right people for the job, the hard way.

The last time I needed web developers I had to

1. Find web developers online, easy.
2. Compare existing portfolios to narrow my search.
3. Send out multiple identical requests for quote.
4. Communicate and deal repeatedly with similar questions to;
5. Enable a closer comparison of skill, experience and values to;
6. Decide who we would work with or at least further discuss our online development needs.

The process took 10+ hours of time over about 10 working days and provides a common example of how to waste time and money in your business. But there is another option for outsourcing which makes it more time and cost effective to connect with the right people.

Connecting People & Projects

In the USA sites like www.elance.com already  exist to promote and link people and work although in this case we mean work, as in tasks, one off jobs and finite projects rather than careers jobs.

For the freelance contractors that make a living by catering remotely to the business needs of others it is a very cost effective way to find work and earn a living.  In a few simple steps they can showcase their talent and skill, find work, gain experience and get paid for doing what they do best.

And for people in need of say web developers it is a guaranteed way to save time, providing an environment in which to connect, communicate, select and award work to the best person for the job.

Get a head start on your competition and join the Worknow community to post and find work for free when our online work-bid system arrives Winter09.