Composition by Charles Handy on the changing nature of organizations and careers, and how a portfolio work approach is the best method for securing employment in the future. Handy begins the document explaining that the quantity of people working today in full-time jobs in organizations is less than half of all the adults of working age, while the rest were self-employed, part-time, temporary workers, unemployed, imprisoned, or unpaid domestic workers. He goes on to argue that such changes in people's working lives are a result of organizations not needing the same quantity of people working at the same time for the same number of hours, explaining that organizations are now following a rule in which half as many people are on payroll, paid twice as well, and producing three times as much. Following this formula, organizations are therefore obtaining outsiders to do non-essential work, and technology has aided in making that a possibility. With more specialized workers, more will be demanded from employers—employees will want challenge, opportunity, and development in addition to compensation. Handy then declares that more people will, as a result of such changes, become portfolio people, and how this portfolio world will be an age in which women excel, with men needing to compete with women more directly, rather than vice versa. Overall, skills and talents will have to be seen as saleable products or services to potential customers. He then predicts that people will have a busier Third Age, traditionally the retirement age, and that those who start preparing for this Age in their Second Age of work will probably enjoy it most.
Handy, Charles B Toyota automobiles Organization theory Organizational behavior Organizational change Organizational effectiveness Employment (Economic theory) Employee selection Shaw, George Bernard, 1856-1950
Source
Composition by Charles Handy on the changing nature of organizations and careers, and how a portfolio work approach is the best method for securing employment in the future, 1990; Charles Handy Papers; Box 19, Folder 1; 13 pages
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