Free Employment Advice

Did you know that a recent government survey (October 2009) said that 22% of workers are unaware of their basic employment rights and that 1/3rd of workers had experienced an employment rights problem at work?

Workline’s History

When the Workline concept was initiated by the UK Film Council in 2006, this was to provide free employment advice, primarily to freelancers and those on short-term contracts working in the UK Film and TV Industries, in response to industry professionals asking for confidential, independent HR advice.

With over 50% of those working in the UK Film and TV Industries estimated to be freelance, and with working practices quite industry specific, Workline was seen as a necessary service.

Workline’s website content was researched carefully to provide relevant advice in ‘plain English’. The website is the backbone of the service and is updated regularly. In addition a confidential e-mail and telephone helpline is offered to answer personal, complicated queries.

Workline statistics

During it’s 2.5 years of UKFC funding (which ended in March 2009) Workline helped nearly 200 individuals a year personally. The website averaged 5,700 page impressions per month in Year 1 and 2. Since October 2009 * we have been averaging 9,250 per month.

The most popular website searches are:

• Working Time Directive (hours of work, holidays, rest breaks).
• Employment status (am I a freelancer?) and employment rights.
• How your employment can end (Redundancy, Disciplinaries etc).

Personal queries – now, 50% of personal queries are about employment status/contracts/redundancy and 13% about Working Time Directive.

The people making personal enquires are from a wide spectrum of industry professionals, but over 30% are from Producers/ Directors/Execs and 10% Managers/Consultants – all influential decision makers.

What Workline offers and why we are different:

Lesley Furber has managed Workline since 2006 and is the main source of its content and advice (with over 20 years Human Resources experience, mostly in the UK Media sector). When funding from UKFC was withdrawn Lesley continued running the service voluntarily (with UKFC’s blessing), believing the service to be of intrinsic value to the industry.

Here is what some of Workline Beneficiaries say:

“Absolutely great service – the level of detail and clarity on the website is amazing! I’ve saved it in my ‘favourites’”

“This is to say a big thank you for all your help recently with my redundancy. It really made the whole process much less stressful”

“I have just come across your website and think it’s a wonderful idea – a valuable resource for the industry”.

Although there are many other websites carrying similar employment rights information, Workline’s proposition is unique in that it offers the following:

• All advice is free, often industry and freelancer specific and covers all employment related topics and is accessed from the wider Freelance Advisor site.
• It offers a personal e-mail and telephone helpline for those working in the UK Media sector for those with complicated queries
• It has support from Employment Lawyers Goodman Derrick LLP so ‘callers’ can receive some free legal advice if necessary.

We believe that Workline offers people an essential lifeline when they are at their most vulnerable, saving them time and worry and reinforcing their knowledge to help their situation. Visitors to the site know they can trust the information because of its independent nature.

• In October 2009, Workline formed a partnership with Freelance Advisor, and the Workline website was refreshed and expanded on their website. This has given the Workline audience access to a wider range of advice (tax, accountancy etc). Since then our web traffic has grown by 60% and we generate new traffic to our site through positive PR, links and personal referrals. Since October 2009 our personal queries have remained at the same level and our website page views are now averaging over 9,250 per month. Freelance Advisor page views average 38,000 per month.

Supporters of Workline – how we can help your business

If you would like to talk about partnering with Workline simply e-mail Lesley (lesley@workline.org.uk) and we’ll get back to you right away to discuss your ideas, what would work best etc. In the meantime, here are some ideas:

• Associate yourselves with a valued industry service and access Workline and Freelance Advisors’ audience through Sponsorship – you can either sponsor the whole Workline site or a specific section.
• Promote your services/products to our large and influential audience though a high visibility featured button or banner on the whole Workline website or on a specific section.
• Market Workline’s personalised service as a benefit to your membership and get listed in our Supporters section.

(Freelance Advisor website statistics from October 2009 – March 2010)