The new type of employee even got a new name - the portfolio worker - and was supposed to benefit from a more flexible schedule and shorter hours.

'Some who are, to use Charles Handy's term, "portfolio workers", see taking a higher degree as means of expanding their portfolio of skills, and want to take their career in a new direction.

Among the ideas he has advanced are the "portfolio worker" and the "Shamrock Organization" (in which professional core workers, freelance workers and part-time/temporary routine workers each form one leaf of the "Shamrock").