Get your designs online… Overtime rife… Recycle your computer… Are you an employer of choice?

Online contests for cool designs

Need a cool design for a website, stationary or business logo? Why not hold your own design contest? According to Springwise, you can do just that via SitePoint, an Australian website that helps companies by facilitating competitions to complete their design tasks.

All a business owner has to do is pay SitePoint a $US25 listing fee, put in money for a prize for the winning design, and describe what they’re looking for (as well as the preferred colour scheme and file format, what it is for, and which design elements to incorporate).

Designers start submitting their work for all to see. Once the contest holder sees a design they like, they can award the prize to buy the design or, if necessary, suggest minor tweaks or request changes.

Designers retain all rights to submitted work until they’ve been awarded the prize on offer and have been paid in full. On receipt of payment, all rights to the winning design transfer from the designer to the contest holder. To protect themselves, designers are advised to check the contest holder’s previous posts to determine their standing in the community, and to ask the contest holder questions about the terms of payment.

SitePoint’s design contests already boast more than 2000 designers who submit on average 420 designs a day, and more than $US80,000 is offered as prize money each month.

Aussie workers do more overtime

Almost three million employees, or 37% of Australia’s workforce, worked extra hours or overtime in November 2006, according to an Australian Bureau of Statistics snapshot released yesterday.

Of those who put in the long hours, 43% usually worked paid extra hours only, 48% usually worked unpaid extra hours only, and 9% usually worked both paid and unpaid extra hours.

And 60% of employees reported they have no say in their start and finish times, suggesting that the extra hours worked are largely requested by employers.

There were 1.4 million (17%) employees who usually work shift work, while 38% were able to work extra hours in order to take time off, and 36% had hours that varied weekly or they were usually required to be on call or standby.

Canberra’s dead computers
go to Dell

Last weekend Dell gathered up 35 tonnes of old computers in a free recycling day in Canberra reports Gizmodo.

Dell offers recycling services that allow you to choose whether to recycle or resell your old or outdated computer equipment. For information on Dell’s services for business customers, visit Asset Recovery Services, contact Dell Recycling on 1800 465 890 or email recycling_dell_au@dell.com

An alternative to recycling is giving to charity. There are probably plenty of not-for-profits that may be thankful for your gear.

Employer of choice: How do you compare?

To be an employer of choice for women in the eyes of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency is getting harder.

To get the accolade in 2008, according to the newsletter Discrimination Alert, employers will have to meet six criteria:

1. Pay maternity leave.
2. Provide part-time work for female managers.
3. Conduct sexual harassment training when staff are being inducted.
4. Offer refresher courses every two years.
5. Have either at least 27% of managers who are female (based on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures).
6. As an alternative to the above, have a greater percentage of women managers than their industry average.

The mining industry should perhaps take note. It is struggling to attract women to its ranks and the Federal Government has paid for a report Unearthing New Resources – Attracting and retaining women in the Australian minerals industry – by the Mineral Council of Australia outlining the challenges for females in the male-dominated mining culture. Big issues for women include bullying, and fear of vilification for reporting low-level incidents.