What is Atkinson's 'flexible firm' model?

Answer 1

The Flexible firm model is a model for future hiring mode that Atkinson (1984) suggested. This model requires companies to break the existing hierarchical structure, so that different groups of employees may be employed with fundamentally different employment policies.

According to Atkinson's explanation, the reason is that the pattern occurs, "the company seeking more flexibility in hiring mode has a lot of pressure. They attach great importance to be able to get a quick, effortless and an inexpensive labor force deal with unforeseen changes in this labor force should be able to freely expand and contract, working time is fully consistent with the job requirements and labor costs remain low. "Figure: flexibility key corporate model company model flexibility elements of this model is the organizational structure of some companies are trying introduced.

The key elements are:

(1) the structural requirements of this new labor force into the core group (Core group) and peripheral groups (Peripheral group). Labor to form the core groups are stable, they are engaged in the key fixed specific activities (Firm specific activities). Member of the core group have flexibility on the functions, or functions in a variety of trained, hence, they have a variety of skills. Rest of the enterprise is called peripheral labor groups, they are flexible on the number. Therefore, the external groups with the situation of the market demand, competitive pressures and the external business environment to expand or shrink.

(2) In general, members of the core group of full-time and long-term employees. The reason they get this job stability, because they are willing to be trained in various skills and the flexibility to perform a variety of functions. Such persons are generally managers and design engineers.

(3) a first peripheral populations may be full-time employees, but they work better than the core group that specialized. Office clerks fall into this category, these jobs are not fixed Specifically, companies can find such persons outside the labor market.

(4) the second peripheral group of workers generally have fixed-term contracts, they work so much less stable than the above two categories.

(5) As for the specific work is not fixed, companies can subcontract (Sub-contracting), self-employed (Self-employment), etc. to be recruited from outside. This not only allows companies in the number of staff has a lot of flexibility, but also to promote the flexibility of function, because in this case to be employed must be responsible for the completion of a job, but the job also requires specialization . One example is subcontracting out cleaning work. In short, the skills shortage and higher demands on the flexibility of human resource planning process is the two most important factors.