Should Employees Be Loyal To Their Employers
Before answering whether or not employees should be loyal to their employers, it's important to note why many employees are not loyal to their employers. The reason will make you realize you're more of an moron than a human being.
A. FINANCIALLY DISCOURAGING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY
Financial aspect of employee loyalty is one of the biggest problems at large corporations. There are two very important corporate policies at many corporations that financially discourage employee loyalty:
1. COMMUNIST MERIT INCREASE POLICIES.Companies that give everyone a 3% raise across the board are doing a disservice to employees who exceed their expectations. Sure, you can take the butt kisser path and focus only on getting promoted for the bigger raise. The problem is that companies would crumble if everyone was a butt kissing promotion hunter. People that chase promotions don't actually produce anything other than arrogance.
2. SALARY INCREASE CAPS ON PROMOTIONS.For those that actually are butt kissers, bad organizations still find a way to lose their loyalty, even though they're dying to love thy employer. Many companies have a salary increase cap when an employee is promoted. And whether that cap is 10%, 15%, or 20%, that's still "Bush" league.
B. BREEZING PAST THE CAREER SIDE OF EMPLOYEE LOYALTY
The bread and butter of most employee loyalty articles focuses on the human or career side of encouraging employee loyalty. Giving employees training options, career advancement paths, and making them feel like they are an important piece of the puzzle are just some of the methods often used to help encourage employee loyalty. The problem is that most corporations merely pretend to care about this aspect, and employees see right through it.
1. ONLINE TRAINING COURSES that are completely worthless.Someone shoot me in the head. Is this seriously what they think employees want? How about sending employees to a legitimate training class where they actually develop specific skills for the job that they are interested in?
2. BS CAREER ADVANCEMENT PATHS.Telling an employee that they have plenty of ways to move up in the organization because of a "Grade Level System" at the organization is laughable, man. Allowing someone to move up from Data Analyst I, to Data Analyst II, to Data Analyst III, all while having the exact same responsibilities isn't exactly a career path. It's called career suicide. How about giving me some flexibility and allowing me to learn some new technology and different aspects of the business (not that I personally am interested in that, but proactive types seem to be interested in it).
3. PRETENDING TO IMPLEMENT A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP.At large corporations, they try to encourage a sense of ownership by offering stock option plans and other nifty ideas. The problem is that most large corporations are simply too big for anyone to have an impact on the success of the business. It's like 500 people carrying an obese woman. It doesn't take long before you realize no one is going to notice if you only pretend to help. You can always rely on 20% of the people to carry 80% of the load.
C: WHAT CAN COMPANIES DO TO ENCOURAGE LOYALTY?
1. GIVE MERIT INCREASES AND DEMERIT DECREASES.In order to keep the people that deserve to stay, you give them reason to stay by giving them larger raises. More importantly, you use a crappy employee's money to pay them. You gain loyalty from good employees and lose loyalty from the ones you wanted to fire. Japanese managers aren't wimps. Losing the "loyalty" of worthless employees is never a bad thing. It's called managing people OUT of a company.
2. ENABLE PEOPLE TO DECIDE HOW MUCH SOMEONE IS WORTH, NOT A CORPORATE POLICY.Putting bureaucratic caps on promotion based raises is like a wife setting a limit of one sexual encounter per month with her husband. Upon learning that her husband left her for a lady that does not have a sexual encounter policy, she's surprised by the disloyalty of marriage in today's world, and is in shock that there are women who do not have a monthly sexual count policy. When the wife tries to counter with two sex sessions per month, well honey, it's a day late and one back door short.
3. CHALLENGE EMPLOYERS, BE LOYAL TO YOUR CAREER.This doesn't sound like something that would encourage loyalty, but in the long run, it would dramatically improve or end corporate policies that discourage loyalty. Dropping your blind loyalty and focusing on the success of your own career will force employers to rethink their ridiculous policies, otherwise they risk losing all of their good employees. Loyalty is a two way street, like Lady Gaga. If companies don't offer people the income they can get elsewhere, the training that makes them useful, the career path that makes them stay, and a sense of ownership that makes them care, there's no reason for employees to remain at an organization.
D: CONCLUSION: SHOULD EMPLOYEES BE LOYAL TO EMPLOYERS?
No, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote above. Loyalty is only something that exists in personal relationships. Employees who claim to be loyal are just people that fear change. Employers smell fear. To reward you for your fears, the company pays you 75% less than the guy sitting next to you that has no problem quitting his job if the bathroom is busy.
However, this doesn't change the fact that I still want my employer to add an Annie's frozen yogurt machine to improve employee loyalty
A. FINANCIALLY DISCOURAGING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY
Financial aspect of employee loyalty is one of the biggest problems at large corporations. There are two very important corporate policies at many corporations that financially discourage employee loyalty:
1. COMMUNIST MERIT INCREASE POLICIES.Companies that give everyone a 3% raise across the board are doing a disservice to employees who exceed their expectations. Sure, you can take the butt kisser path and focus only on getting promoted for the bigger raise. The problem is that companies would crumble if everyone was a butt kissing promotion hunter. People that chase promotions don't actually produce anything other than arrogance.
2. SALARY INCREASE CAPS ON PROMOTIONS.For those that actually are butt kissers, bad organizations still find a way to lose their loyalty, even though they're dying to love thy employer. Many companies have a salary increase cap when an employee is promoted. And whether that cap is 10%, 15%, or 20%, that's still "Bush" league.
B. BREEZING PAST THE CAREER SIDE OF EMPLOYEE LOYALTY
The bread and butter of most employee loyalty articles focuses on the human or career side of encouraging employee loyalty. Giving employees training options, career advancement paths, and making them feel like they are an important piece of the puzzle are just some of the methods often used to help encourage employee loyalty. The problem is that most corporations merely pretend to care about this aspect, and employees see right through it.
1. ONLINE TRAINING COURSES that are completely worthless.Someone shoot me in the head. Is this seriously what they think employees want? How about sending employees to a legitimate training class where they actually develop specific skills for the job that they are interested in?
2. BS CAREER ADVANCEMENT PATHS.Telling an employee that they have plenty of ways to move up in the organization because of a "Grade Level System" at the organization is laughable, man. Allowing someone to move up from Data Analyst I, to Data Analyst II, to Data Analyst III, all while having the exact same responsibilities isn't exactly a career path. It's called career suicide. How about giving me some flexibility and allowing me to learn some new technology and different aspects of the business (not that I personally am interested in that, but proactive types seem to be interested in it).
3. PRETENDING TO IMPLEMENT A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP.At large corporations, they try to encourage a sense of ownership by offering stock option plans and other nifty ideas. The problem is that most large corporations are simply too big for anyone to have an impact on the success of the business. It's like 500 people carrying an obese woman. It doesn't take long before you realize no one is going to notice if you only pretend to help. You can always rely on 20% of the people to carry 80% of the load.
C: WHAT CAN COMPANIES DO TO ENCOURAGE LOYALTY?
1. GIVE MERIT INCREASES AND DEMERIT DECREASES.In order to keep the people that deserve to stay, you give them reason to stay by giving them larger raises. More importantly, you use a crappy employee's money to pay them. You gain loyalty from good employees and lose loyalty from the ones you wanted to fire. Japanese managers aren't wimps. Losing the "loyalty" of worthless employees is never a bad thing. It's called managing people OUT of a company.
2. ENABLE PEOPLE TO DECIDE HOW MUCH SOMEONE IS WORTH, NOT A CORPORATE POLICY.Putting bureaucratic caps on promotion based raises is like a wife setting a limit of one sexual encounter per month with her husband. Upon learning that her husband left her for a lady that does not have a sexual encounter policy, she's surprised by the disloyalty of marriage in today's world, and is in shock that there are women who do not have a monthly sexual count policy. When the wife tries to counter with two sex sessions per month, well honey, it's a day late and one back door short.
3. CHALLENGE EMPLOYERS, BE LOYAL TO YOUR CAREER.This doesn't sound like something that would encourage loyalty, but in the long run, it would dramatically improve or end corporate policies that discourage loyalty. Dropping your blind loyalty and focusing on the success of your own career will force employers to rethink their ridiculous policies, otherwise they risk losing all of their good employees. Loyalty is a two way street, like Lady Gaga. If companies don't offer people the income they can get elsewhere, the training that makes them useful, the career path that makes them stay, and a sense of ownership that makes them care, there's no reason for employees to remain at an organization.
D: CONCLUSION: SHOULD EMPLOYEES BE LOYAL TO EMPLOYERS?
No, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote above. Loyalty is only something that exists in personal relationships. Employees who claim to be loyal are just people that fear change. Employers smell fear. To reward you for your fears, the company pays you 75% less than the guy sitting next to you that has no problem quitting his job if the bathroom is busy.
However, this doesn't change the fact that I still want my employer to add an Annie's frozen yogurt machine to improve employee loyalty
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