Revisiting John Atkinson Flexible-Firm Model for Optometry During and After the Pandemic

The Flexible-Firm Model has been ignored by many strategists due to few drawbacks and arguments against its applicability in real life. However, with the event of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost 37 years after John Atkinson proposed it, this model is worth revisiting for Optometry.

The Flexible-Firm Model was proposed by John Atkinson by the Institute of Manpower Studies in 1984. Atkinson advised increasing plasticity of organizations during uncertain times, fluctuating markets, and unpredictable competitive business environment. He suggested that the organization should proactively aim to meet the market volatility with flexible staffing arrangements. In his model, organizations reach an important level of workforce flexibility if they distinguish the levels of importance of certain teams of employees to the organization. The model consists of dividing the organization’s employees into two groups of employees:

The core group consists primary of workers who are the most integral to the functioning of the firm, are the most skilled, work full time, are difficult to replace, are cross functional, and highly experienced.

The peripheral group consists of secondary workers who are less integral to the functioning of the firm, are less skilled, work with flexible time, are not difficult to replace, are functional in few tasks, and less experienced making them easy to replace and largely available in the labour market.

The model also identified three forms of flexibility within the organization:

Functional flexibility is associated with the core group workers’ ability to be flexible across functionalities and cover and perform tasks in most functionalities;

Numerical flexibility is associated to the peripheral group, its availability in the labour market, and how the organization can match labour demands with the number of employees under contract at the organization;

Financial flexibility is associated to the organization’s capability to adjust its price of labour in accordance with the market supply and demand of workers within the organization.

Strategists have always argued against the Flexible-Firm Model for its drawbacks; being proactive in nature, carries a certain degree of risk in the sense that in order to increase flexibility, the organization should be proactively laying off staff which may lead to a drop in productivity and the organization may fall behind the competition and finds itself inclined to more layoffs. Another drawback is the limited career advancement and ladders that peripheral group employees have and can climb.

However, due to the Pandemic, this model can have significant benefits in Optometry. The Practice environment is becoming more challenging and demanding with the introduction of new technologies like telehealth and telemedicine. Optometrists are the most skilled to work across functionalities within the practice including the new teleconferencing additions. The Flexible-firm Model ensures that practice owners and executives -who are most of the time senior Optometrists- within the practice are indispensable for the livability of the practice and staff in the peripheral group can be employed for a flexible time in a way that creates a competitive edge in coping with the Pandemic. Optometry practice would have to match the volume and skill-level of employees at the time of Pandemic which may not necessarily be the same in the long run when applying Atkinson’s model.