Piecework: Build A System To Commoditize Post-Consumer Materials
Overview: ongoing jobs to repurpose quality materials for their next adventure.
Participants: Economically disadvantaged, isolated parents and others whose best opportunity for meaningful, fairly compensated work involves WFH with the option to squeeze productive work around/among multiple constraints on time and attention.
Customer Profile: Junie is 27 and a mother of three young children. She lives in a rural* part of Minnesota and daycare costs for 3 kids under 5 would more than outpace any job she might pick up in town, so she’s 100% SAHM. Hubby works full time, but finances are tight, and Junie has been thinking about how she might leverage what little time she does have to generate some spending cash (besides, Hubs has been gone more often than usual lately and Junie’s been growing uneasy as his demeanor becomes increasingly churlish for reasons she hasn’t been able to figure out). Junie’s nearly desperate to avoid having to hock MLM garbage to her own friends and family, and internet access in the area isn’t great. What might she be able to do that she could squeeze in around nap times and bedtimes that would bring in enough to justify the time and energy? She could probably coordinate a kid swap with Bets (who lives across the way) to carve out a couple more hours of focused time each week, and by this time next year, she’ll have one in Kinder and another in Pre-K, which will make 3 mornings a week feel easy peasy.
*Junie's counterparts live in every community, both urban and rural. Single moms, folks with physical limitations (both visible and invisible) and even unhoused folks could value from work opportunities like this one.
System description: commoditize post-consumer materials: Analyze data from Junket’s 4K+ online sales and time studies to identify top 5-10 products with longest tail/highest profit/impact lowest time costs/most likely to be profitable for pieceworker AND Junket. Paid piecework will be leveraged to build retail ready products and kits using materials prepped for production during Junket’s sorting bees/material prep sessions. This system involves the documentation and licensing of production SOP, video training, etc. This system is designed with the capacity to scale both hyper-locally via location-based non-motorized pick-up or distribution, and to bring jobs into harder-to-serve, harder-to-reach communities via ground-based shipments of kitting materials.
SDG mapping & future growth opportunities: The development of this system maps to SDGs #1 (No Poverty), #5 (Gender equality), #8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth), & #10 (Reduced Inequalities). Green jobs for a gig economy, self-directed work that can be done by humans juggling multiple constraints/barriers to employment.
Future growth: Possible partnerships with local economic development organizations seeking to make transition from coal or manufacturing-centric local economies to post-carbon employment networks. Jobs training, single mother entrepreneurship incubators, carbon competency training, small business development, SBA accreditation, etc.?