Employee Loyalty - Does it Still Exist

Bob De Contreras Thursday, January 03, 2008

These days, your best workers are likely to show more loyalty to their careers than the company. That’s a polite way of saying that your employees are more concerned about themselves than the company where they work. What CEOs need in order to avoid frustration over loyalty is a new view of loyalty and its meaning to employers and employees.

Few business leaders would deny the importance of organizational loyalty; perhaps fewer still believe they can achieve it the way they once did. After all, the lifetime contract expired long ago, and your people, specially your best people, are more likely to display loyalty to their careers than to you, their employer.

The nature of the relationship between employers and employees has undergone a fundamental shift: Today, workers not only don’t expect to work for the same company for ever, they don’t want to. They are largely disillusioned with the very idea of loyalty to organizations. But, at the same time, they don’t really want to shift employers every two to three years for their entire careers. Similarly, companies can’t afford to replace large portions of the workforce on a similar schedule.

So where does this leave us? Is there a way for both employers and employees to strike a brand-new balance when it comes to loyalty, one that gives organizations the focus and expertise they need to compete and employees the career development opportunities they demand?

The answer is yes, but only if companies are willing to rethink how they define loyalty and how they manage their people.

Reevaluating loyalty

Loyalty should not be viewed as an either/or proposition. It’s true, the experts say, that to produce their best work, employees must be loyal to the company and what it stands for. But employees can give their employers 100 percent and provide great performance while furthering their own careers. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, especially when the skills that employees master to further their own career are also what the company needs.

And when firms help workers acquire new skills that support their professional advancement, they often win those workers’ commitment and attract loyal new employees. This gives rise to another important point: Employers can promote company loyalty by helping people grow out of their jobs—ideally, into new ones within the company.

But even when you can’t retain talent, it doesn’t mean departing employees weren’t loyal. Indeed, another mistaken assumption is that loyalty has to mean “forever.” It’s like dating: You can be faithful to the person you’re seeing now while you’re involved with him or her, but that doesn’t mean you won’t move on to dating someone else later. Likewise, companies shouldn’t strive to keep all employees forever. You don’t want blind loyalty. The best situation is when both parties are benefiting. Wouldn’t you rather have a star performer for three years than a dud for life?

Balancing career and company loyalty

If an employee’s loyalties to his career and to an employer aren’t mutually exclusive, how can leaders ensure that the employee-employer relationship pays off for both parties? The most effective executives and managers are applying these strategies:

Align career growth with company goals. When a company helps its employees develop expertise that furthers their professional development and enables the company to address its thorniest challenges, both types of loyalty align powerfully. How to achieve this alignment? Encourage managers to discuss their direct reports’ career goals with them as often as possible. Managers need to help their people identify links between their own professional goals and the company’s goals. When people understand the larger business context in which the company is operating, they can more easily define ways to advance their own careers.
Design work with variety and autonomy. Jobs that provide variety and the freedom to make decisions and mistakes engender extensive loyalty. Allowing people to take ownership of projects gives them the opportunity to develop new skills and, just as important, the chance to show what they can do.
Focus on relationships. For many employees, loyalty is born or cemented through relationships with supervisors and colleagues. The number one reason people leave an organization isn’t inadequate pay or benefits. It’s the day-to-day relationship with their immediate superior. Leaders seeking to secure employees’ loyalty must work to create a positive bond. How? Keep commitments. Be fair in distributing rewards and punishment. Clarify your expectations, and make sure people have the resources and skills they need to fulfill those expectations.
Highlight the link between the employees’ values and your company’s mission. The lifetime employment contract was never the only way to build employee loyalty. Emphasizing a company’s purpose—why we create wealth—also engenders loyalty, especially when employees see the connection between their values and the company’s mission.
Hire quality personnel. The employee is the one responsible for loyalty, so if the person does not care about loyalty no matter what you do as an employer – you will not see any positive change in loyalty. The employees must be responsible for themselves. They need to have personal development plans to build their skills. They need to have the inclination, ability and understanding of the importance of influence and relationships. As a CEO you must build a culture of employee importance to company success and you must hire quality personnel who fit that culture.

In summary, employee loyalty does still exist, both for themselves and the company. While the employees are with you, they can be 100% loyal to the company. Just because an employee chooses to leave does not mean they have not been 100% loyal to the company up until the time they leave. To retain your best employees, align fulfillment of their career goals with the company mission.