Posted on 01/23/2024 12:46:35 PM PST by Cronos
In the two years I've been writing about Americans' changing relationship to work, there's one theme that's come up over and over again: loyalty.
Whether my stories are about quiet quitting, or job-hopping, or leveraging a job offer from a competitor to force your boss to give you a raise, readers seem to divide into two groups. On one side are the bosses and tenured employees, the boomers and Gen Xers. Kids these days, they gripe. Do they have no loyalty? On the other side are the younger rank-and-file employees, the millennials and Gen Zers, who feel equally aggrieved.
Why should I be loyal to my company when my company isn't loyal to me?
...There was a time when the psychological contract between employers and employees seemed unbreakable. In the three decades following World War II, as Rick Wartzman documents in his book "The End of Loyalty," a booming economy made American companies rich. Companies, in turn, shared that wealth with employees, both through hefty raises and through an extraordinary expansion of benefits
But the biggest perk of all was a sense of security. Blue-collar workers faced seasonal layoffs, but it was customary for companies to recall those workers when business picked up. Companies like Kodak went even further, delaying the implementation of new technology until it could figure out how to retrain and transfer any workers who would be displaced.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Companies will have your job posted before you hit the front door. You are but a number. I don’t care how good you are or how much you bring to the table.
I can see your point, although I've made close and long lasting friendships - although in my employment, there's no incentive to compete against one another.
But, my "work" family finishes a distant second to me REAL family.
I was loyal to my first company at first, but then my second project’s manager had to grade people on a bell curve and put the new guy (just put on 2 months before it ended) at the bottom, so a PIP program.
That was a low that I didn’t forget - and even though I got promoted thrice in the next 4 years I looked for other opportunities and left when I got a great one.
Loyalty to a company? They’re not loyal to you, so why should you be to them?
True and I was quite irritated when I saw that Alphabet's CEO got $226 million and yet laid off thousands
Your impression is correct.
Oh that is cold — they fired someone who had worked there for 30+ years and was just 3 years short of retirement...
"When systems run corporations, they have no loyalty to the employees, and employees clearly see this when everything, starting with hiring, is done online through a computer, as with every other thing they need to do with management or HR."
"Loyalty to a computer? Not happening, and everyone I talk to is sick of it, as well as the ability to get a real person on the phone."
My daughter had two part-time jobs and she finally got hired full-time by the first company. (She got the second part-time job to put pressure on the first place to make her full time). She told her boss at the second place that she wanted to put in her two weeks notice.
“Oh - people still do that? Just finish your shift and that’ll be fine.”
The non-monetary perks are what make people love working at a place.
There are “hygiene factors” that a company can provide that cost them nothing, but give a general sense of well-being to employees. Like free coffee and tea — if you make them pay each time for it, the resentment starts.
Likewise, a friendly yet professional atmosphere works better for people to give the best of what they need.
When I was a people manager I realized that most of the “happiness” is not just money related. Note “not just” — people need to be adequately compensated and I saw it as my job to review each quarter or earlier what people were being paid v/s what they did and what was in the market and to give them raises even if they didn’t ask for it. Then, people need to be heard and appreciated for the good things they do AND told when they might be doing something wrong or even heading in the wrong way. I didn’t have any attrition in 3 years.
It’s never just transactional.
bttt
Thank you. I agree 100% with your statement.
My boss about 17 years ago told me that the average time in a company should be around 5 years. I think it’s cut down a bit since then.
The way I see it
1. you need to use the ideas in the book “The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter” [Michael D. Watkins]
2. You have then the first year to completely learn the people, processes, etc. and give a return on the investment for hiring you
3. Year 2 is succeeding and growing
4. Year 3 ie either to improve or keep growing. After 3 years if you aren’t moving up or sideways, time to think about quitting and to find a new job
I (as an engineer) think it may have to do with the rise of the MBA crowd
I don’t think it was the government as I see the same problem in companies all over the world — even in Japan!
I think the same, the young idiots are coming out of the universities as cocky brainwashed poison pills straight into management and corporate leadership.
Profit margin didn’t permit it - well, the thing is that money is just ONE of the many ways to retain employees.
In 2001 the company a colleague had just joined as a fresh out of college employee - the company got hit by the dot com bubble bursting. But they didn’t fire him and people who joined with him (the easiest targets) - what happened was that the CEO and the top two layers took a hefty pay cut and the next few layers took a lower pay cut.
No one was fired
That bought company loyalty.
That said, your point is well-taken. When management bites the bullet first, it demonstrates great loyalty and great leadership.
I think people who have a good company atmosphere, easy commute and a boss they like and respect, would not leavefor $5 more per hour —> I wouldn’t - for the comfort factor.
If that job had a bigger scope or a scope I want to go into, then I would join. OR, if the manager/colleagues were a pain
Very true. Treat people well, share the profits, make for a productive environment, treat people’s professions with the proper respect, and they will stay their entire lives.
They did before, such as in the 1950’s.
A few years back, I was on a train that passed tor Kodak office building. There were weeds 3 feet high growing out of the parking lot expansion joints.
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