Every single industry is going through a major business model and technology oriented disruption.
Aaron Levie – Entrepreneur
Story: It’s almost impossible to illustrate a work model for today’s organizations. They are complex with diversified product and service supply chains. However, the Handy work model shows in simple concentric circles what organizations face in VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) time.
Charles Handy, the smartest workplace guru, said thirty years ago work is fundamentally changing. Companies own core intellectual assets including proprietary processes and intellectual property. Handy then coined the notion of by 2 by 3 rule of corporate fitness.
This workplace is characterized by half as many VUCANs(R) (folks living in VUCA time) on the payroll, paid twice as much, producing three times as much. Handy’s work model consists of 3 concentric circles:
• Inner ring. The inner ring, the organizational core, is composed of corporate insiders, functional managers, process workers, and core process VUCANs. The inner ring Core Process VUCANs are usually full-time-equivalent and work @ home employees.
These VUCANs have full benefits, salaries, retirements, and vacations. They are the glue that holds the organization together and grow it. They generate new ideas, innovative products, and add corporate value.
• Middle ring. Portfolio or Project VUCANs inhabit the middle ring according to Handy. These VUCANs are contractors, hustle-VUCANs, or temporary workers. VUCANs offer marketable, transferable skills, knowledge, and abilities that add organizational value. These skills are portable and can be sold to the highest bidder. A VUCAN becomes an itinerant professional selling his or her skills from employer to employer. More FOW work is architected and designed around projects.
• Outer ring. The outer ring is composed of interchangeable and disposable contract VUCANs. These VUCANs are less skilled, service workers. Some are marginal workers who service the repetitive needs of the organization such as food service, administrative chores, or travel services. They’re paid considerably less than core and project VUCANs.
Work Lesson Earned: The Handy model is a simple FOW (future of work) model. It’s critical to know if you are a core, project or interchangeable VUCAN. Many VUCANs want to be core process workers because of perceived stability. However, the inner ring is now at risk of disruption in the post-COVID work world. What do you think of the Handy work model?