Unit 01 – Awareness of Employment within the Creative Media Sector

Unit 01 – Awareness of Employment within the Creative Media Sector

• A Full-time job is employment in which the employee works the full number of hours defined as such by his/her employer. Full-time employment often comes with benefits that are not typically offered to part-time, temporary, or flexible workers, such as annual leave, sickleave, andhealth insurance. 
• A Part-time job is a form of employment that carries fewer hours per week than a full-time job. Workers are considered to be part time if they commonly work fewer than 30 or 35 hours per week.  

• A Freelancer is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and labor contributed by its regular employees. Others are completely independent.

• Fixed Term Employment is where the employee is taken on for a specific amount of time, unlike a full time employee who works at their job indefinitely until either they want to change or they are asked to leave.

The differences between an employee and a freelancer/contracter is the following: 
For an employee:

• Your employer provides all of the work, the equipment for it and they decide how and when you do the work.
• You will have a written contract which gives you the right to stay as the employee if you keep with the terms and conditions, giving you much more safety than being self employed.
• You are expected to do the work yourself that you are employed to do, and may be moved to different tasks however they see fit.
• You are paid a regular amount according to the hours you work, giving you a permanent wage which again keeps you safe from the dangers of sometimes not being able to get any income as a freelancer for example.

Self-Employed (Freelancer or Contractor)

• You determine how and when you do the work within reason, meaning you can have much more time set out to do what you want such as taking holidays whenever you want, and how many times you want. You can also, if you want a break, just ask family or friends to cover for you.
• You pay your own tax and national insurance contributions on a self-employed basis so you would have to deal with all of that yourself.

I am a full time apprentice and have a set amount of hours i have to work and i get paid for those hours. Being a full time apprentice i am provided with all the necessary tools and equipment that is required for what i am doing. I receive projects that i am required to complete in order to pass my course. 
Some of the benefits of being a self employed worker is you can work your own hours when suitable, but you have a lot of things to keep control of, but you could be rewarded with a lot more, whereas if you are a full time employee working for someone, you have less weight on your shoulders as you basically have the tasks that your occupation requires of you but you only get the set wage that you are entitled to receive but it is a lot safer.

A contract of employment, is an agreement between an employer and an employee which sets out their employment rights, responsibilities and duties.The employment contract is made as soon as you accept a job offer. Having a written contract could cut out disputes with your employer at a later date, and will help you understand your employment rights. You and your employer are bound to the employment contract until it ends, or until the terms are changed. 

Tax and National Insurance as an employee is taken out of your wages automatically, but being self employed you have to deal with this on your own accord.

A good website to find particular jobs in the Creative Media Sector would be http://www.viewcreatives.com/ as it has a large amount of jobs for all around the UK.

Self employed people need certain qualities to be successful in what they do in the CMS. You would need to:

• Have resilience
• Have extensive knowledge of what field you are in
• Be able to think "outside of the box" meaning you should not just take certain decisions lightly and quickly, as that could lead you down the wrong path
• Have passion for what you do.
• Take risks as they could some times pay off if you know what you are doing
• Have a back up plan for pretty much everything that you choose to do.

Things that employers look in employees for the CMS are:

• Good verbal communication skills
• Able to communicate well in groups
• Not be shy and not too demanding
• A nice personality
• Good computer skills necessary for what you are working in
• Willing to learn and take orders from other people
• Honesty