Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Company Values | Service, Integrity & Excellence

Our company values are by nature idealistic, intended to help us lift our game and aspire to excellence. However, I just noticed that they also underline our ability to deal with situations when we fail to exceed expectations .

# Integrity: We keep our promises, treat people fairly and value open and honest communication.

Honestly, major fail on our part

Kia Ora

Hey I understand you’re working with Jolyon in Timaru on the time bank and that you guys had a go at using our system the other day while it was way out of whack, which is really unfortunate. I promise it’s not normally so error ridden.

Last Thursday, we finally put the paid work marketplace live. This requires shifting a whole lot of new code from our staging to live website. As you experienced, like Jamie & I did here too, there were some major errors.

While http://worknow.co.nz registered all the changes http://www.worknow.co.nz was still hosting the old website. This lead to a whole raft of problems & a pretty major Fail on our part ~ all due  to a very small error on our Domain Name Server(DNS).

Sorry that you guys had such a bad initial experience. I beg your understanding that as volunteers, building this site part-time we had only just begun to pick  up on the faults ourselves, when Jolyon got in touch.

We have fixed the DNS issue and all should be back to operating as normal. We are also working to build you your own separate marketplace and if we haven’t completely lost your interest, please take a second look, have a play and yeah make your call now that what we offer, is working.

You guys are welcome to call or email me anytime with  questions, feedback or criticism. Appreciate your understanding.

Kind Reagrds
Renee Lee
Co Founder

It’s great to see the people sharing their talents

“…Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing…”Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Whether you need help around the home,  at work, in business or you’re just looking to expand your repertoire of skills there’s a growing range of time and talent on offer.

Creating opportunities for others to help

Now, everyone likes to be able to help other people because it’s a good thing. Yet apparently we are not so willing to give others the opportunity to help us.

True fact though people; every single one of us has something to learn from others.  If you aspire at all to helping other people please consider this.

One of the kindest things you could do for another person may simply be to help them feel needed by allowing them the opportunity to help you.

With time trade one’s own motivation to help others comes second. It’s about putting the needs of others before myself by focusing less on the need to be needed – who can I help?, how can I help? – and more on outcomes that can only be secured by enlisting the time and talents of others – how can another persons talents, skills and time help me and others?

It would be great to see every member contribute at least one Time Request in an effort to provide others the opportunity to help.

Thanks to your feedback

And on that note I have to say again a big thanks to everyone that has offered feedback on the beta site. I’ve added all your thoughts to the user voice forum We are working on implementing you’re suggestions so keep them coming. This week thanks to your feedback:-

• The loop hole that allowed people to create multiple responses on a single trade has been closed. Now when you view a trade in the Marketplace that you have offered or accepted time on you will have a link to “view open trade”.
• We have added a “My Posts” page to your Workspace to make it easy to view and edit all the trades that you have posted. It’s pretty basic right now but it’s the basis for an evolving history of all your trades.

Changes to Work Flow

• Where as before you could begin trading simply by hitting the “offer time” or “accept offer” buttons we think it makes sense to begin by starting a conversation, right? So you now create a message before you hit the button.
• By default trades remain visible in the marketplace but you can now hide or display listings instead of deleting and creating new ones. There’s now a link in the right hand column visible on your trades and posts.

“…Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons…” John Ruskin.

Letter to IRD Re:Tax obligations for volunteer work experience

Dear Sir / Madame,

Thank you for your letter dated 24th September outlining the legislation upon which your advice is based. I now seek clarification on two points please.

1. We intend time trade to be a tool to promote, support and encourage people to volunteer in the community. For example;

• Sue Smith volunteers with the SPCA to walk a dog one afternoon. After the work is done the SPCA provides feedback for Sue’s online talent profile with the comment “Sue did a great job, she was on time and works well with animals” . They also credit Sue 1 hour for the 1 hour she volunteered.

• If charitable organisations use time trade as a means to provide recognition of volunteer work and offer constructive feedback on volunteer contributions will such an exchange be liable to any type of tax or GST?

2. We want to facilitate volunteer work experiences for young people and believe time trade provides a means to promote, encourage and reward volunteer work experience. However, if a business offers students Volunteer Work Experience for example;

• to shadow and learn from a business person
• attend meetings and take minutes or
• work with employees and contribute to a business project

And then use our time trade system to

1. place constructive feedback about the volunteer and;
2. credit the volunteer time in recognition of the time they volunteered

Would such activity be liable for Tax and GST?

Can you please clarify the treatment of these time trades for all tax or gst purposes. I appreciate your help to understand where our tax and legal obligations are on these matters. Thanks for your time.

Kind Regards,

Renee Lee
www.worknow.co.nz
renee@worknow.co.nz
+64 21 18 300 50

IRD Response Received 18 January 2010

On the basis that:-

• volunteer workers are freely undertaking volunteer activity within New Zealand chosen either by themselves or a group of which they are a member and
• volunteer activities do not form part of a business activity ordinarily carried on by the volunteer and
• a benefit is provided to the community or another person for which there is no intention of private pecuniary profit for the person

NO TAX LIABILITY ARISING

• the crediting of time to the volunteer and
• the posting of feedback on their volunteer contribution

IS NOT considered to give rise to an INCOME TAX or GST liability to the volunteer undertaking the work.

The time credit is considered to be a form of reimbursement of time and or costs that may have been incurred by the volunteer in undertaking the volunteer work, which is accordingly TAX EXEMPT

Copies of Correspondence

Tax Inquiry 7 December 2009 / IRD Response 18 January 2010

For more information refer to Tax & GST

What is your greatest talent?

Everyone pauses when I ask this question. Um ah let me think about it… but the fact is we all have talents, and for the most part we know exactly what they are, we just don’t feel it is “proper” for us to promote our own strengths. But face it, if you don’t then who will? Trust yourself, first.

One of my greatest talents, gifted of God, has always been my ability for learning. I learn quickly and either pick things up or I understand what I am not interested in or good at. I like to learn my weaknesses. I question, I learn, I adapt.

Vanity is a weakness, so I’ll rephrase the question

What do you think is one of your strengths?

Strong is good, strengths we are allowed. At this point most people will admit to having at least one thing that they consider themselves to be good at.

Personally, I consider one of my strengths my ability to fall and get back up again. I have fallen hundreds and hundreds of times – off horses, downstairs and into the the path of moving vehicles. I’ve fallen out of favour, over myself, into people, plants and precarious places.

Hands up if you saw me fall and destroy the deck chair at Jamie’s BBQ and thought it was hilarious. While not exactly helpful I assure you it has the potential to entertain.

And for those still struggling to verbalise an answer in regard to talent or strength then how about this question…

What do you like to do?

Usually your talents, your strengths, are integral to activities that you enjoy doing, be it talking or listening, growing or gathering, building vs demolishing.

I love the outdoors and it makes a whole lot of sense that the time I already spend running or walking could be shared with others .  I love animals too so I’m happy to offer time to exercise people’s dogs.

Our is not to judge the talents we are given, our responsibility is to use them and what better way than by helping others?

Exchanging Talent & Time?

Time is one of the most precious resources we have. It is the great equaliser. In a world with an ever widening rift between rich and poor, the freedom and / or limits of time (depending on your view) remain common to us all. Seven days, 24 hours, 60 minutes.

Yet all to often we overlook the true value of our time. Contrary to our hopes, sometimes the more we try to do the less time we seem to find. Yet, when we take time to enjoy the here and now you often find that the more you value time for its own sake the more time you will have.

The point is simply that doing the things that you love, which often involve your strengths or your talents, is the best way to use your time.

What’s more there are people in our communities that need your talent. A helping hand a listening ear and open mind might make all the difference to someone else.  The question now is – how do you choose to value your time?

When time is not money what value can it be given?

A: An Hour

Time Trade is simply the idea of spending one hour using your talents to help others in your community. In exchange for one hour of your time and talent you receive an one hour time credit from the person you have helped, which you can then gift or exchange with other people for their time and talent.

What would you trade your talent and time to learn?

Helping other people, is a good thing. It makes us feel like contributing members of our society. That “good deed” warm glow comes from the knowledge that we have time and talents to offer others. This feeling is called being empowered.

To empower others requires recognition that despite our own talents and strengths, we too, need help from other people but while we all feel the need to “help others”  it is not always easy express when “I need help”.

If I could request time to trade I would like to learn to speak Maori.  I can’t surf to save myself so I’d love some lessons, I’d love to get out kitesurfing and  I’d also like to learn spanish. I have tried to learn by myself but it’s not working.

If you have the talent and time to help others please register to create your talent profile today.

Statistics New Zealand today released the Household Labour Force Survey showing a rise in unemployment over the September 2009 quarter.

Sadly those most effected by unemployment are our future leaders, business creators and workforce:

• 15 – 19 Unemployed 25.1%
• 20 – 24 Unemployed 10.9%
• 25 – 29 Unemployed 6.8%

For more information click  through to Statistics New Zealand articles for download

Job Crisis or Opportunity for Change?

Business Week  recently lead with a story entitled The Lost Generation discussing  the effects of the existing job crisis on young people in the USA.

the continuing job crisis is hitting young people especially hard – damaging both their future and the economy…studies show that an extended period of youthful joblessness can significantly depress lifetime income

As today’s figures show, youth unemployment is also a problem here in New Zealand. Yet,  suggestions around creating a sub minimum wage to encourage employers to take on young people  does little to empower or improve their future earnings potential. It simply undervalues their time, skills and talent and feeds into the downward spiral of lower lifetime income.

We see ways to empower young people, support Gen Y’s potential, harness their talents and help them discover their place in the workforce

“…We seem to have focused wrongly on building CV’s rather than building businesses…” Sam Morgan

We currently have a wealth of talented young people preparing themselves to be employed rather than cultivating talents which could drive economic growth through the creation of new business and new jobs.

Things are changing on the education front but we believe there is  opportunity to provide additional tools to help young people transition from study to work.

The solution we are offering incorporates work experience, education and elements of the traditional CV

1. We want to encourage Volunteer Work Experience as a means to build confidence and valuable work skills  so we are facilitating a system of Time Trade (a.k.a Time Banking) to encourage, recognise and reward volunteer activity.

2. A Peer Mentoring Community connecting Graduates with recent Alumni who can share with students of the same / similar discipline their experience of the study / work transition and highlight the real life opportunities available in the marketplace.

Where to look, who to talk to, which skills are important etc. Existing examples include the future in tech initiative to which we hope Time Trade could be applied as a tool for rewarding their career ambassadors.

3. We are using social networking tools and talent profiles to allow young people to build a living work history, a CV with a wealth of testimonials to their talent, skill and work ethic. A talent profile against which they can also be matched with volunteer and paid work opportunities.

Youth unemployment is a major issue but it’s reassuring to know that there are many community based organisations stepping up to help keep young people engaged in productive activity despite the fact of high unemployment.

Build your talent CV

…Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1 KJV

My father always propounded the wisdom of patience. When I was 15 I thought it was a simple exercise; learn patience, be patient.

But now twice that age I realise that patience will test me all my life. It is my dads voice that I hear reminding me “patience is a virtue”. It’s a mantra, often at the forefront of my mind these days as we await the launch of our beta service.

Someone recently said to me the opposite of patience is not impatience, it is anger. And I agree because in my experience a lack of patience, much like a lack of forgiveness, is a negative burden if I allow it to become a ruling emotion.

The beauty with patience is that it keeps me sane, happy and at peace with the progress we are making.

Development has been slower than I hoped but patience helps reign in my expectations for achievement that by nature I tend to burden myself with.

Patience keeps me to open to new opportunity and seeking out the people, ideas and feedback that will help to develop and refine our service.

To everyone that has patiently awaited our beta service, thanks for checking out the alpha v0.3. While behind schedule we are only days away now from having the additional functionality and Jamie’s inital design live.

From then on in,  development of our service will continue based on the needs of participants and it’s with much anticipation that I look forward to your feedback.

Letter to the IRD Seeking clarification on the tax treatment of Time Trade

Margaret Jefferies of The Lyttelton Time Bank was very helpful on this point but to confirm the IRD stance on the tax treatment of Time Trade I was told I would need to submit a formal written inquiry. They said that they would respond within 60 days of receiving my letter. On the 23 June 2009 I wrote:-

Dear Sir / Madame

I seek written clarification regarding the IRD’s treatment of Time Trading in exchange for volunteer work.

Time Trading a.k.a Time Banking is simply about spending an hour doing something for somebody in your community, in recognition of which you receive one “Time Credit” which you can then gift or trade with other community members, in exchange for their time. It’s a simple idea, but it has powerful ripple effects in building community connections.

Worknow intends to facilitate Time Trading by providing an online system to automate the transfer of time credits between Community Members. Time Trading provides people with “time credits” equivalent to the amount of time they have spent volunteering. For example:-

I volunteer 1 hour a week to help run a Twitter campaign for an environmental action group because online marketing is my area of expertise and I volunteer to support their cause. In exchange for my time on the Twitter campaign; I am credited 1 hour per week for my contribution. With time credits I have three options, I can:-

1.Gift my credits to a charitable cause, community action or service group to be redistributed to other volunteers.

My cousin has a green thumb and a generous nature. In his spare time he grows a large garden and distributes fresh veges to families in need. In recognition of his contribution I can gift him my time credits.

Gifted time credits, he can then transfer these to a couple of local kids who volunteer to help him weed the
garden on Sunday’s.

The kids then seek out a community member to help them build their dream tree hut in exchange for the time credits they have accrued from gardening.

2.Trade my credits with community members in exchange for their time.

We often forget to put out the recycling on Friday morning so I offer to trade / transfer my credits to the kid next door; if he puts the recycling out for us on a Friday morning I will offer him 1 credit per month.

I also notice that a friend who is a trained masseuse is a member and ask for a massage in exchange for 1 time credit.

3.Allow my credits to expire

The potential uses for this system are vast. The question I would like you to clarify please is:

At what point does the IRD intend to tax people for the time they volunteer? Or tax those people or companies who benefit from volunteer services?

It would be helpful if you could please clarify this answer in respect of the scenarios outlined above, specifying please if the IRD treatment of volunteer time exchange, for tax purposes, differs depending on one’s level of personal expertise, form of employment or type of company vs. individuals involved. It would be helpful if you could offer scenarios that further clarify the IRD’s position on this concept of Time Trading.

I appreciate you taking the time to help us understand the tax legalities of this Community Support & Volunteer system and look forward to your timely response.

Kind Regards,

Renee Lee
Worknow Ltd
e. renee.lee@worknow.co.nz
m. +64 21 18 300 50
p. +64 3 455 3901
www.worknow.co.nz

After following up I was told by the IRD that my letter was received and that I could expect a reply by August 26th at the very latest as the IRD reserved the right to take up to 60 days to prepare and provide a written response.

Of course, August 26th comes and I am told that my letter had been overlooked because I sent it in during the “busy” time of year. The matter was escalated and finally after several more weeks of following this issue up, on the 24th of September I received a reply.

Letter from IRD in response to query submitted requesting clarification regarding the IRD’s treatment of Time Trading

1. The commissioner of Inland Revenue considers Time Trade a form of barter.
2. Time Credits give rise to a valuable consideration for work performed.
3. Anyone using Time Credits as part of any business activity must pay tax and GST on such transactions…based on the current market value of the work carried out.
4. If transactions occur outside of a person’s business activity they will not be liable to income tax or GST

“Therefore for those persons who do not undertake a business activity or those persons who undertake activities outside of their ordinary business activity would NOT be liable to account for such transactions”

IRD Scenario Example

A plumber who is registered for GST undertakes some gardening work for another person and receives a time credit for that work, would not have to account for this transaction. However, if the plumber provides time to repair a leaking tap, then any time credit arising for this transaction would need to be converted in to a cash equivalent and be liable for income tax and GST and need to be incorporated in the appropriate tax returns.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me on renee@worknow.co.nz as I have requested further details regarding supporting legislation and am happy to answer any question you may have.

Copies of correspondence

Tax Inquiry 26 June 2009 / IRD Response I 24 September 2009 / IRD Response II 24 September 2009

For more information refer to Tax & GST

Independence vs Collaboration

I will always value my independence and my ability to make things happen but in the past my strong willed independence was one of my greatest weaknesses. As a gifted young person, my attitude to achieving goals was always self determined, borderline egotistical and admittedly I believed that “…if you want something done right, do it yourself…”

However, in retrospect this philosophy perpetuated a self-delusion. It did not help me expand my talent and although I was nearly always (99.98%) able to achieve my desired outcome I now recognise that in being so “independent” I was isolating myself and limiting what could have otherwise been achieved through collaboration with others.

There were unique characteristics holding New Zealand’s [entrepreneurial] development back, such as reluctantance to look for help and build a team. Source

In Collaboration with Talented Other’s

Recognising that every single person has talents which can add value for myself and others is fundamental to the development of Worknow. Time Trade especially is designed to recognise and highlight the fact that we all have talents that are of value to each other and our communities.

Today’s networking tools have created an environment where communication, collaboration and coordination are becoming second nature. They need simply be applied in our real life communities 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 collaboration begins a paradigm shift in the way we think about and accomplish work.

Recognise Weakness; Work to your Strengths

Yet despite knowing and believing that I need the help of other’s I still sometimes lack the patience and skill to just listen and hear people out. Instead, I sometimes find myself, forming replies in my mind rather than actively listening.

So when a friend replied to a similar statement I made about myself with “…it’s good that you see that because I see it as one of your weaknesses…” and launched into a conversation about why and how I should change, I opted to just let him speak, I bit my tongue and I let him tell me things I already knew about myself (oh you noticed that did you, well done) and voila! I gained this insight:-

It will always be more important to recognise people on the basis of their talents rather than their weaknesses

On the topic of you, trust yourself.

Constructive criticism has its place but we could easily spend too much time attempting to overcome weakness that are simply the shadow of our strengths. We all have faults and in the main we probably recognise them. Doing something about them is not meant to be easy but a good place to begin is simply being conscious of them and making changes where we can.

If you focus too much on mitigating faults you lose time wherein you could be building upon your strengths. I may never stop that childish know-it-all voice that thinks “…I know what you’re saying….” but I can ignore it, hold my tongue and in hearing people out perhaps gain insight to help me expand my talents.

A letter to our founding members – Noon Wednesday 26th August 2009

Time Trade is LIVE!

Thanks to the ever talented Josh we can now begin to trade time. Simply:-

1. Login to Worknow here http://www.worknow.co.nz/login
2. Go to Time Trade and click on “go here to spend time”
3. You can then credit people for sharing their talents and time with you

And so it begins, Yay!

To connect with other members of our talent community:

1. Go to PEOPLE then click on members name or photo to view their full profiles
2. Click on the “Request Connection” link found below the profile picture to send email request.
3. Once the other person confirms the connection, you can begin trading time with each other.

Please guys, feel free to share feedback, ideas and criticism via the discussion Forum so that we can incorporate this into to the ongoing build process.

I am so excited to see the Time Trade begin to take shape. There’s 21 founding members here and the opportunity is ours to inspire and grow Time Trade as a community building tool and working alternative to $NZ. Thank you so much for being a part of the Time Trade journey.

Best Regards,

–
Renee Lee
Worknow Ltd
+64 21 18 300 50
+64 3 455 3901
www.worknow.co.nz

Discussing Time Trade recently, we were asked whether we believe Gen Y are as concerned or involved with volunteering as we might hope.

While we might not have as much cash to give, yet, I and others I know volunteer our time and talents to help with work as diverse as marketing to community gardening, environmental action to peer support.

Personally, I think we are as active, if not more than older generations but that much of our work goes unrecognised because we tend often to work together of our own accord (rather than under the umbrella of established charitable causes) by using  networking tools  to connect, collaborate and work together.

With Time_Trade we  provide recognition and a measure of the value (T) Gen Y contributes as volunteers. Evidence of a generation, although often labeled selfish and self-centered, that are as passionate about causes and helping others as those before us.

The fact is, as the social networking phenomenon shows, many Gen Y’s are highly connected and community orientated.

Anyone seeking to engage Gen Y needs to recognise that as digital natives one of the most effective ways to communicate with us is through online networking because these tools helps us save time and achieve the work-life balance we seek.

In addition to work we may also be juggling study, friends, family, sport, other paid and unpaid work commitments.  Hence the need for a more flexible, increasing mobile method of communication

Although Time Trade developed primarily as a tool to provide recognition for Gen Y volunteers Time Trade has the potential to help charitable oranisations achieve more with less money by maximising existing resources and:

1. empowering people that might only otherwise be recipients of charity and
2. encourages people that may not normally volunteer their time and talent.

We also understand that Time Trade can not replace the need for money so by implementing the bid, buy and feedback process we also offer the opportunity for individuals and organisations to source the best value service suppliers.