During the last Economic Forum at Davos, Manpower referred to the “human era”. In other words it is no longer the capital of a company that is the engine for growth and performance but individual talent. So after the industrial era, the spatial era, the information era, we now have the human era. Progress is only possible if we have the right skills, at the right place and at the right time. Finding the talent will be more important than finding the finance. Manpower calls this a pass from capitalism to “talentism”. It is no longer the company but the talented people who determine when, where and how to work.

We know that women are three times more likely than men to leave a company or their position (opt out) when the pressure of responsibility starts to accumulate. This includes: long working hours, business trips, constant availability, profit and loss responsibility, unforeseen workloads, number of people to manage, and so on.

These losses for a company arrive at a time when managers start to take on more managerial functions (around 40 years old). A waste of talent at this stage is devastating for the company. It is only for the women who have taken on these roles throughout their careers that at the age of 56 their professional ambitions become on an equal footing with men.

The consultancy firm Bain & Company published a report at the end of 2010 studying the impact of the measures of flexible working time and the levels of careers of women and men. Their findings were twofold:

• In order that these flexible programmes work effectively they have to be tailored to correspond to an individual’s needs.
• Employees need to be convinced that flexibility will not penalise the careers of those who use it. So, company leaders, men and women, should set the example by using the system.

From the moment when these two basic principles are respected, the results are very effective in retaining the best employees, ensuring that they remain satisfied and loyal: 25% increase in retaining men but 40% in retaining women.

We know that satisfaction is becoming more and more important for younger generations. Therefore it’s becoming imperative that we address flexible working time.

The JUMP Forum on the 5 May will organise a conference on the theme of flexibility when the author of the study will be present to explain the analysis. We will have some examples of how it works in practice. For example, Deloitte has launched the “Mass Career Customisation” in France and the Netherlands. The principle is that from now on all careers change and are no longer linear “from corporate ladder to corporate lattice”. All Deloitte employees can speak about their careers every year with their line managers, covering four areas: the rhythm, the role, the workload as well as the hours and place of work. The pilot projects were highly successful and users were satisfied with this new tool giving them the power to constantly reassess their careers, in function with their family lives. It is even more important now in the US where 87% of couples both work!

So what’s good for women is also good for men. Measuring flexibility to ensure that companies retain the most talented individuals is long over due.