Henry Ford is attributed to introducing the 40 hour work week in the 1920s, not so much for the health of his employees, but so employees would have enough free time to go out and realize they needed to buy stuff.
So much has changed since the 1920s, it’s always seemed a bit ridiculous to me that we largely stick to the 9-5 mantra. As a designer, I often find that 4 of the 8 hours at work are spent looking blankly at a screen, and 90% of my work is done while sleeping, on a run, or talking to someone. Work simply doesn’t fit into the required hours and as a country trying to push a knowledge economy, it’s time to re-think the 40 hour work week.
That’s not why I started Limber though.
Many years ago, I started my entrepreneurial career. It failed so badly I wince at the term entrepreneur when it is applied to me. I find it embarrassing because the very idea of starting a business since then has felt exhausting and I know what a big fat failure I am. As a result Ive played a minor role in some awesome ventures (like MyTours), but largely left them in the very capable hands of others.
At the beginning of this year, I started thinking that life has become very easy. I remember the days when I used to look blankly at people complaining about how stressed out they were while vaguely wondering if just never getting out of bed again was a viable option. Its been so long since then, I found myself complaining more and more about the hardships of getting up for a run, how annoying a family member is or how stressed out I was doing a job that is really just not that stressful.
It felt like time to do something different. I looked to blogging for inspiration, and got fairly stuck in for a time. I talked to heaps of people about heaps of ideas and realised that for the first time in almost a decade the idea of starting a company was not only not terrifying, it was exciting. In the past decade Ive learned so much and when I sat down and had an honest think about where Im at, I realised that Im no long a worn out 23 year old, completely overwhelmed by the scale of the mess Id created for myself. Im older, Im wiser and actually quite tough. It was time to start something again.
But that’s not completely why I started Limber.
It was during a conversation with a bright, intelligent and driven woman who was wondering how on earth she wont be left behind if she has children, that it came to me. She was me. There’s a million of us around who for various reasons want to have children, work in interesting jobs and still have time to breathe. We dont want to take 5-10 years out then arrive back in the workforce several steps down a ladder we spent ages climbing.
I looked around more and more and more and more people came out of the woodwork. People like my dad, who finished his career about as far up as you can get. His experience and skills are so valuable to growing businesses, yet his interest in the golf course and their pre-conceived ideas about hiring people at that level (i.e only on a full-time basis) meant he just stopped working.
It had never fully occurred to me before the huge mine of expertise we lose through those two groups alone by sticking to this model of ‘important’ work having to fit into a 40 hour model created before most people alive today were even born.
Thank goodness Toni Barrett agreed and together with Jim Donovan we pulled the business together over two meetings.
We’re 3 weeks after a soft launch, we’ve listed over 130 professional part time and flexible jobs and were growing remarkably quickly. We’re offering free job listings while we build more momentum and we need more candidates to sign up.
This is one of those simple ideas that everyone seems to have had, and I really think its time has come.
I’d love to hear you thoughts!
