What puts a spring in your step as you walk to work? The chance to make your mark on the firm’s strategic direction? The prospect of three weeks paid holiday trekking in Morocco? Or is it a case of take the money and run? The candid answer is now more likely to involve the prospect of getting sand in your walking boots than paying the rent.

Time is now more valuable than money wherever you stand on the career ladder, according to a survey of more than 1,000 junior and senior professionals. The survey, by Universum, found that 40 per cent of junior employees – those with one to eight years’ work experience – and 50 per cent of senior professionals – with more than eight years’ experience – ranked flexible working hours as the most attractive perk that an employer could offer. This compares with 31 per cent of junior staff and 36 per cent of senior staff who put competitive compensation first.

Workers are placing increasing importance on their personal lives and are not afraid to make demands of their employers, the survey shows. Work-life balance is No 1 on the list of short-term career goals for 43 per cent of junior staff and 60 per cent of more senior staff. Extra holiday just pipped performance-related bonuses as the most welcome form of compensation for both groups.

This last finding surprises Peter Thomson, the director of the Future Work Forum at Henley Management College. “I would have expected that senior people, perhaps with family commitments, would have been more interested in having extra holiday,” he says. “Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because you could argue that young people want to see the world – go surfing or something – before they settle down, so they are also looking for extra holiday [but] for slightly different reasons.”

Employers are aware that workers’ demands are changing. “Money is no longer what drives people,” says Sasha Hardman, the HR associate director at Allen & Overy, a law firm. “They want interesting work, the opportunity to progress, to work with interesting people and a good work-life balance. We need to be much more flexible about the fact that people don’t all want the same thing.”

Age and experience inevitably influence our work wish-lists, according to Christopher Van Mossevelde, the head of university relations and data collection at Universum. “Young professionals want to acquire skills. They need to prove themselves... so they tend to be ambitious and driven,” he says.

So junior professionals aspire to take on increasingly challenging tasks (38 per cent); work internationally (37 per cent); reach managerial level (30 per cent); and value rapid career progression (35 per cent).

Inspirational management vied with corporate reputation as the most important influencing factor for those choosing a new employer. “There is an interesting message for managers here,” Thomson says. “An uninspiring manager is one who says, ‘I want you sitting at your desk from 9am to 5.30pm so that I can watch what you are doing’. There is a correlation between the inspiring management and flexible working.”

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