This week, I invited one of my favorite sources on work/life balance – something we’re all striving for – to write a guest post about finding a job that works with your hectic schedule. Allison O’Kelly is CEO of Mom Corps, a flexible-employment staffing service. The company provides employers who are looking for part-time workers with a pool of candidates, and professionals with flexible job opportunities.
In today’s economy, it’s hard enough to find a job – let alone, a flexible one that suits your needs both as a professional and a working mom. But don’t despair – in actuality, this may be one of the BEST times to land the flexible gig you need to finally achieve and maintain some form of life/work fit.
While the economy has definitely taken a toll on the job market, it has also forced us companies and employees to reevaluate how we work – and we have seen flexibility placed at the forefront of this change. When companies couldn’t afford to reward and entice employees with bonuses or raises, they were forced to get creative and offer flexible work schedules, four-day work weeks, sabbaticals, and telecommuting options instead. When workers could not find full-time, traditional positions, they in turn started freelancing, contracting, and even interning. Both corporations and workers have seen the benefits of workplace flexibility in terms of morale and profits, and the average 9 to 5 has been redefined during the recession.
So how can you find a flexible job that matches your skill set and experience? More…
We all have a special talent we wish we could monetize – maybe you make the best pies in the neighborhood, or your photography skills are prized by your friends. But how do you turn it into a profitable business?
We get this question all the time. And the best advice is always to start small, with little to no overhead. If you can moonlight in your pie-making business on the side, you’ll not only make some extra cash in your spare time, but you’ll get a feel for whether it could actually be a profitable, full-time business down the line.
Luckily, there are all sorts of online tools popping up these days to help you sell the fruits of your labor. In a series of posts on this blog, I’m going to detail some of the best ones, starting with one of my favorite online shopping destinations, Etsy.com. More…
WHO: Serena Dugan and Lily Kanter
WHAT: Serena & Lily; an upscale linens and homewares company.
WHERE: Sausalito, CA
WHEN: 2004
HOW: When her first son was born in 2000, Lily Kanter, an 18 year veteran of the corporate world, decided to trade in her board meetings for baby bottles. Shopping for her newborn, Kanter struggled to find high-end furniture for the nursery. “There was nothing in the Bay area that was done with well edited taste,” she describes. Soon after, Kanter and her husband capitalized on the void in the market and opened Mill Valley Baby & Kids Company, a baby and home furnishings shop.
At that same time, Serena Dugan, an experienced freelance decorative painter, More…
WHO: John Scardapane
WHAT: Saladworks, the nation’s #1 salad franchise
WHEN: 1986
WHERE: Saladworks has locations in 11 states, but the company calls Conshohocken, Pennsylvania home base
HOW: Being successful in business is rarely a toss up. It’s a mix of ingredients: hard work, creativity and passion, to name a few. But for John Scardapane, founder of Saladworks, it was both.
Working as a gourmet chef in a New Jersey country club, Scardapane noticed a lack of healthy alternatives for diners and decided to take action. “I realized that there were really no healthy alternative food offerings available for consumers on-the-go, so I developed the concept to serve fresh, made-to-order entrée-sized salads in a comfortable, restaurant environment.”
With that concept in the back of his mind, Scardapane climbed the ranks at the country club, going from chef to management level. Scardapane soon learned however, that the promotion wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. “When I was promoted to management, I was guaranteed a base salary and a percentage of the profits of the club. I made these profits, but I was never given my percentage because of a prior manager’s losses. This made me realize that I couldn’t work for someone else – I had to go into business for myself,” he says. More…
WHO: Mark Boyett and Jeff Winner
WHAT: The Diner’s Deck, a deck of cards—one for each of the 52 Manhattan restaurants chosen by the deck’s creators—with each card doubling as a $10 gift certificate at the place it describes. Forking over the $29.95 for the deck can really add up to some serious savings. To break even use three cards. Use the whole deck and you’ve saved yourself around $490. Boyett and Winner’s brand, “City Shuffle,” has also recently added two new decks: The Diner’s Deck for Brooklyn and Downtown and The Bar and Lounge Deck.
WHEN: 2003
WHERE: New York, NY
HOW: “The original inspiration for The Diner’s Deck came to Jeff when he was getting ready to go on a date” says Boyett. Wanting to shake things up a bit and discover a new place to dine, Winner wrote the names of some restaurants on slips of paper, shuffled them and asked his date to pick one. Two nights later, Boyett and Winner went out to grab a bite to eat, planning to use a gift certificate to pay for the meal. Over a couple burgers, Boyett listened to Winner’s date night tale, and then it hit him. More…
