Every single industry is going through a major business model and technology oriented disruption.
Aaron Levie – Entrepreneur
Charles Handy, probably the smartest workplace guru, said thirty years ago that work is fundamentally changing. Companies own core intellectual assets including proprietary processes and intellectual property. Handy then coined the notion of ½ by 2 by 3 rule of corporate fitness. This workplace is characterized by half as many VUCANs 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, and core VUCANs. The inner ring workers are usually full time equivalent employees. They have full benefits, salaries, retirements, and vacations. They are the glue that holds the organization together and grows 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, gig-workers, 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. In the next section of the book, we focus on the middle ring, project workers.
- Outer ring. The outer ring is composed of interchangeable and disposable contract VUCANs. These VUCANs are less skilled, service workers. Many 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 process model of work. It’s critical to know if you are core, project or interchangeable employee. Many VUCANs want to be process workers. However, the inner ring is at risk of disruption.