About us
Part Time Professionals was established in 2015 with a vision to provide stay-at-home parents - primarily mothers - with a different way of working that works for them.
Most women take time out of the workforce when they have children, but it’s challenging to return to full-time work. Not only is the cost of full-time childcare prohibitive, but many women just aren't ready to go back work full-time when their maternity leave ends.
Some can negotiate part-time hours, and sometimes a degree of flexibility is possible around start times and an ability to occasionally work from home. But permanent part-time roles like this are scarce, and the reduced hours often mean sacrificing the ability to work on more complex and interesting projects, as well as opportunities for future advancement.
Many talented, highly-qualified women stay out of the workforce for years because they can't return to work in a way that works for them and their family. This has far-reaching consequences, impacting on the gender pay gap and on the number of women in leadership roles. If we want more women in the leadership pipeline, women need to have the opportunity to stay in it.
By creating an environment where professional working mothers have the option to work for outputs not hours – being paid for specific tasks, or by project with agreed deliverables and timeframes – we provided women with choice around work arrangements beyond standard full-time or part-time options. Allocating work according to tasks rather than hours worked removes the stigma attached to working part-time, and removes the perception that if people are working fewer hours they're contributing less. The opposite is true.
We think stepping away from the need to work set hours and be physically present in an office space is a huge opportunity for working mothers and the businesses who hire them.
Part Time Professionals today
Since Part Time Professionals’ inception, we have expanded our pool to include other professionals who choose to, or need to, work in a flexible way.
We provide our professionals with a way to work that works for them, keeping their CV current and providing our clients access to a pool of talented, experienced people who provide great service and value for money.
And we provide excellent service to our clients while giving stay-at-home parents, especially women, a genuine choice about how they balance their work and home lives, reducing the career consequences of having children.
“We love that Part Time Professionals are extremely flexible and not constrained by a 9-5 work schedule. So when we’re not working, they are - it’s a really efficient way of achieving tight deadlines.”
— Susanna Barris, Ministry for Primary Industries
How we work with you
Budget is agreed before a contract is signed. We provide you with a fixed price for your project, which means no hidden costs or unexpected expenses.
Each of our projects is assigned a project manager, who is the main point of contact for the client. The project manager works with a team of content creators, which can include writers, graphic artists, animators and/or videographers.
A timeline for review and delivery of first draft and final product is agreed with the client at the first project meeting.
The project manager keeps in regular contact with each member of the project team to ensure they are on track to deliver their part of the project. They also keep the client informed about the progress of the project as required.
The agile and responsive nature of our business model means we are highly flexible, and can scale up, scale down, or switch to project teams in another location if required.
How it works behind the scenes
When our company takes on a project - producing an online course, for example - we break that project into smaller skill-based segments, and send them out to our network of qualified Part Time Professionals.
When the work comes back, the elements are pulled together, quality-checked, and the complete product is delivered to the client.
We know all our freelancers, their specialties, and the deadlines that work for them, and we base our decisions about work allocations around that knowledge.