Product category:
Recruitment services
News Release from: PeoplePerHour | Subject: PeoplePerHour.com
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 26 September 2007
New website creates job opportunities
An online marketplace has launched that allows small businesses to outsource projects of all sizes - even small tasks - to a community of skilled people who can complete them.
PeoplePerHour.com taps into the demand for a new approach to matching the needs of employers with the needs of the employee, which has arisen due to recent profound changes in the structure of the UK workforce According to a survey carried out by the Equal Opportunities Commission in 2006, over 40 per cent of UK women and 10 per cent of men are now making lifestyle choices which involve opting for part-time or occasional work patterns, rather than the traditional '9 to 5' regime
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 21 Jun 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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Meanwhile, at the beginning of 2006, there were approximately 4.4m small business enterprises (employing 0-49 employees) in the UK (up 2.9 per cent on 2005 - the highest level since data was first collected in this way in 1994) employing around 13.2m people (58.9 per cent of employment) and producing a third of all enterprise turnover in the country.
Of these, 2.8m were sole traders (Source: The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform).
Recognising these dramatic trends in both the type of employee and type of employer, Xenios Thrasyvoulou, founder and CEO of PeoplePerHour.com, realised that the traditional facilities enabling small businesses to identify and hire specific skill sets on a needs basis, were wholly inadequate.
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"How does a sole trader find someone to help them write a business plan", asks Thrasyvoulou, "without making a financially unaffordable commitment to a full-time accountant or employing a firm that is looking for fees which are simply out of reach? "How does that trader find an occasional secretary, or an IT specialist, or a translator for a potential one off export deal, without spending almost as much money recruiting as the job is worth?" On the other hand, it is almost impossible for a skilled person, looking for that type of occasional work, to find the job opportunity that will supplement their income whilst retaining their need for flexibility.
Employment agencies, classified ads and the like don't offer these types of vacancies.
The result is tens of thousands of occasional and one off projects going begging - to fill and be filled.
PeoplePerHour.com solves this problem.
By creating an online community that matches project demands with qualified people with available skills, PeoplePerHour.com taps into this burgeoning market.
PeoplePerHour.com has been trialling the site for the last four months and, according to Thrasyvoulou, has hit its target of 1,000 skills providers, three months earlier than forecast.
"Despite having undertaken no marketing whatsoever", enthuses Thrasyvoulou, "purely by word of mouth, we have over 1,000 service providers signed up to our service offering their talents, which range from copy typists and web designers to sales assistants and marketing consultants - and these are growing at about 50 a day".
With a steady and increasing flow of projects being posted on the site, from 'Help with an exhibition' and 'Design a 3D animation', to 'Get an audio transcribed' and 'set up my IT network in my new office', PeoplePerHour.com is confirming its founder's vision: "We are successfully tapping into spare capacity, from skilled, competent people who want to earn an extra living by doing things in their spare time.
"We are finding that skilled individual bidders are often as much as ten times less expensive than the equivalent companies.
"And, based on the feedback we are getting, the quality is equal or better, as these people each have their niche specialities.
"That is a huge saving that goes straight back to the buyer," adds Thrasyvoulou "while still giving the provider an excellent level of extra and, until now, unavailable income.
As the new PeoplePerHour.com campaign says: Job Done".
Case studies.
1 Database Cleansing.
A company involved in marketing hotel accommodation needed help cleaning up a contact database; 12 bids were received and the work was done by a 'virtual assistant' who runs a horse transportation business, dry stone walling business and Welsh Cob stud in Derbyshire.
2 Copy Editing.
The internet is an important sales channel for this company which helps UK people find properties overseas; they needed someone to edit website brochure copy for a couple of hours each week.
3 Arranging utilities supplies.
Organising connections of gas and electricity supplies to newly converted apartments was proving time-consuming for this Birmingham-based property dealer; he received 10 bids for the work which is now being carried out by a sales professional from Leicestershire.
4 Transcription.
The challenge was to get a DVD transcribed and PeoplePerHour.com put this client in touch with a specialist transcriber who was one of 10 bids for the work.
5 Client database.
Moving over 4,000 records in 60 box files onto a single database was one of those projects this company had been putting off for some time; PeoplePerHour.com gave the director an opportunity to find someone who could do the job quickly and cheaply.
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