The model of a company which can be dismantled

Flexibility requires that traditional, durable companies with permanent staff lose ground to companies which can be taken out of commission. Such companies are concerned with projects, sometimes of considerable size, but never long-lasting. Just like the organisation behind the 1998 Football World Cup, in a few years' time a team will be created which will work towards an objective and which will then disappear once its purpose has been achieved. Gérard Gouillou explains that the success of the computer-based project for the 1998 World Cup relied essentially on new human resource management practices including the recruitment of unusual candidates, motivation derived from being in groups, development of the mutual knowledge of team members, a sense of fun and…quick redeployment of the personnel after the event. In the light of this experience, Hubert Joly concludes that a company such as this, far from being a degraded form of a permanent company, is, on the contrary, a promising prospect for its employees.