Names
The Farm

Age
10 year old family business

Size
SME
Turnover 500,000 per annum

Professional Background
The farm relied on short term temporary staff to fill gaps in demand for the seasonal busy periods.  The staff were generally students and were not dependant on the income for their daily needs.  Their team were unreliable and every day they were without some member of the team.  This meant that the MD was constantly working in the business and had little time to work on growing and developing the company.

Why they used the service
The Farm used the service to provide them with a better scheduling system for their team.  Because they could quickly advertise shifts as short notice to the whole workforce shifts.  This meant that the shift could be covered when a member of the team was not available or did not arrive.  Literally within an hour someone was always available to come in and help.

How if benefited them
Lifeworklife gave them access to a wide range of employees who were also looking for short term work but not a long term commitment.  This allowed The Farm to make their workforce more diverse and therefore offer a better customer experience.  One of the people they encountered was Peter, Peter really enjoyed his work with the animals and the MD was impressed with his ability and commitment.  When a vacancy arose Peter was selected to fill the post with no temp to perm fee or advert in the local paper required.  This saving alone justified the use of Lifeworklife for another year!

Names
Mobile Car Radio Fitters

Age
4 years old

Size
Small company

Professional background
Steve worked as a car radio fitter for many years. He set up his business in 2003 and had enjoyed much success.  He was frustrated by the fact that he needed to be available to take deliveries of stock but this meant that he could not be out fitting radios.  He also needed someone capable in the office to deal with enquiries.  Steve had previously run an ebay shop selling some of his radios and this had begun to earn him a good additional income but he did not have the time to continue to manage the shop and had let it go.

Economic profile
Steve was at capacity for running his business on his own and was earning around 25k.

Why they used the service
Steve visited an Ideas House session and had got some great advice.  He arranged to see the HR consultant regarding taking on staff and opening an office.  They looked at the costs involved.  The figures meant that he had to look at a more innovative way to grow his business.  He also needed to increase the amount of business he was doing to enable him to take on at least one more fitter to fund the office. He considered approaching the bank when the consultant suggested lifeworklife.

Steve used lifeworklife to search for someone who would be able to work from home.  They would be paid hourly for answering the phone and receiving packages but he would also pay them on a commission basis for new business and share the profits of his ebay shop 50/50.

How it benefited them
Steve found a retired mechanic who wanted to keep his hand in and do something that would use his business skills and his engineering skills.  The person he found had been increasing his computer skills at home and was excited by the prospect of the ebay shop.

Steve is well on the way to having the turnover to opening an office but has decided that he prefers to work with people this way. He is in the process of recruiting a new fitter through lifeworklife.

Names
Large UK Plc

Turnover
60 million per month

Background
The Directors of a large telecoms Plc looking at ways to cut costs and paperwork on a significant part of their business.  They need to loose approximately 30% of their workforce over the next four years.  The company is not happy with redundancy as it feels that the team working in the department has some strong elements that the company would still like to maintain but not on a full time employed basis.  The usual route would be to offer consultancy contracts as part of the redundancy package but this still leaves the employer open to high taxation under new rules about proving independence for self employed status.  The company has four years to loose 1700 people in this division.

Why they used the service
Restructuring the company had cost over 7 million pounds in the last financial year and the company felt that there had to be a better way to manage the flow of ups and downs in their needs for resources. Lifeworklife is a virtual workforce management tool.  Perfect for using to retain a workforce without adding them to your head count.

How it benefited them
The company introduced lifeworklife across their business and their employees began to use the service to take on extra bits of work from home with other organisations.  The company was able to prove independence from 45% of the part of the workforce that was targeted in the restructure over the course of four years.  A year later they began work overseas and needed to re use the services of some of the team that had become independent.  They were able to simply send an email to this group and invite them to apply for the roles that they required.  This gave the company a completely scalable resource pool as a first port of call for their recruitment campaigns.

Roles change as businesses grow and individuals change as their priorities alter during all of life’s phases.  Lifeworklife provides a place where change is embraced and control is maintained, simply, effectively and with a sense of fair play and fun!