tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post5496952362809904817..comments2023-12-13T08:45:02.282-06:00Comments on On the Job by Anita Bruzzese: Has Workplace Loyalty Gone to the Dogs?Anitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07673125042097858304noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-61293081621273949552009-08-14T15:44:18.517-05:002009-08-14T15:44:18.517-05:00Great question -- I don't know the answer. So ...Great question -- I don't know the answer. So I asked about it on Cube Rules in a post, referencing this one.Scot Herrickhttp://cuberules.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-63255876800187940112009-08-10T13:27:36.658-05:002009-08-10T13:27:36.658-05:00Scot,
When I was a senior in college and my dad wa...Scot,<br />When I was a senior in college and my dad was 10 months from retirement, he was laid off, as were 900 other people at the refinery in my small town. I watched him work 12-14 hours days in a gas station for years after that. I managed to get a scholarship for that last year, but things were difficult for my parents for a long time. So, when you talk about loyalty, I know exactly what you're saying. As someone who was once demoted in an e-mail, I REALLY know what you're saying. I know that a company/manager/people are different beasts, but I'm not sure a lot of people see that difference, do you?Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07673125042097858304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-14630494469709517712009-08-10T12:26:17.215-05:002009-08-10T12:26:17.215-05:00Anita,
I think you can be loyal to your manager w...Anita,<br /><br />I think you can be loyal to your manager who also is the person who lays you off. You have a working relationship and, if it's a good one, a layoff is something that happens in the process.<br /><br />As for your coworkers, absolutely, you can be loyal to them; they may have a worse time by staying after a layoff than you do finding a new job!<br /><br />And the "company" that did everything to keep the doors open -- that's not accurate. Managers did something to keep the doors open or not. People make the decisions about the direction of companies.<br /><br />Should I be loyal to incompetent managers that drove Washington Mutual into the ground through poor decisions? Or to the managers at Lehman who blew the company up? Or to the managers who drove Enron into spectacular bankruptcy?<br /><br />Or should I be loyal to the managers at HP that laid off all those people a couple years ago and now are not having to because the new management team knows how to run the business?<br /><br />I know which one I would pick.<br /><br />All of these are good questions; I think my original point was this: people run companies. So there is no "company loyalty" because there is no "company" making decisions. <br /><br />People make decisions, not companies. So to be blindly loyal to a "company" means you are ignoring the actual people making the decisions. <br /><br />The more interesting question to me is "to whom should you be loyal to in a company and why?"<br /><br />It is a good subject and one, I think, that needs talking about. The age of lifelong employment with a company is gone, yet we cling to the idea that we should be loyal to a company.<br /><br />If we are continually changing jobs every X number of years, wouldn't it make sense to be loyal to people that we want to work with and then work with them?Scot Herrickhttp://cuberules.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-40856429971055725152009-08-10T06:45:48.164-05:002009-08-10T06:45:48.164-05:00Joyce,
I think there is a lot of fear when it come...Joyce,<br />I think there is a lot of fear when it comes to talking about these issues because everyone is just sort of "hunkering down" and trying not to make waves. But that sort of isolation only makes matters worse when you're trying to develop a strong team. Thanks for your comments.Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07673125042097858304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-90525747800431863772009-08-09T20:21:30.146-05:002009-08-09T20:21:30.146-05:00Employers and employees need to discuss the loyalt...Employers and employees need to discuss the loyalty issue. There is so much not being discussed at work such as trust and expectations from all sides. If employee engagement or loyalty is missing at work, it is up to the team to discuss these things.Joyce Weisshttp://joyceweiss.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-45450430387134381562009-08-05T09:31:36.211-05:002009-08-05T09:31:36.211-05:00Kareem,
A "sense of isolation" is a grea...Kareem,<br />A "sense of isolation" is a great description, and one I think a lot of people could identify with. Thanks also for the tweet!Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07673125042097858304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-55298437526228828622009-08-05T09:13:54.027-05:002009-08-05T09:13:54.027-05:00There definitly is something said about workoplace...There definitly is something said about workoplace loyalty. If you go into work and feel that you can not trust or confide in anyone, there is a certian feeling of isoloation that you experience which is never good for your work. Great post! I tweeted this to all my friends this morning.Kareemhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15772628847936647575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-68312007975591785022009-08-05T08:58:24.332-05:002009-08-05T08:58:24.332-05:00Grant,
Good point. I think you're right: The w...Grant,<br />Good point. I think you're right: The way to gain loyalty is through honesty and transparency. Doing it any other way just breeds contempt and disloyalty.Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07673125042097858304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-60779885602909420542009-08-05T08:27:29.310-05:002009-08-05T08:27:29.310-05:00I think we have to look at the sources of loyalty....I think we have to look at the sources of loyalty. Blind loyalty due to being thankful for having a job etc is long gone. I do think loyalty can be engendered if staff are engaged with their roles. I think companies should focus on ensuring that roles and their content engender interest, committment and thus loyalty, rather than trying to create loyalty to the company itself. That's naive. You can check out more views at http://www.mytalentplace.co.uk/blogGranthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09306658294306600613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-5993962877494645882009-08-05T07:41:19.905-05:002009-08-05T07:41:19.905-05:00Wally,
I think you express some important points h...Wally,<br />I think you express some important points here: trust is easily broken, and it takes time to build. A tough environment for something that is so important to success -- and yet many companies continue to make the same mistakes, don't they?Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07673125042097858304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-24748071604221631232009-08-05T07:25:24.878-05:002009-08-05T07:25:24.878-05:00Loyalty is the travelling companion of trust. And ...Loyalty is the travelling companion of trust. And trust is built slowly. It's also fragile and can be destroyed quickly. In the workplace, most of time, loyalty disappears because the company didn't keep commitments or treated workers like parts instead of people. <br /><br />I wonder, too, if the loyalty we're discussing isn't to the company at all. It seems to me more likely to be to others on our team.Wally Bockhttp://blog.threestarleadership.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-91874916541142082872009-08-04T16:22:03.163-05:002009-08-04T16:22:03.163-05:00Scott,
I think it will be interesting to see what ...Scott,<br />I think it will be interesting to see what the future holds. Can you be loyal to a manager whose job it was to lay you off? Can you be loyal to the co-workers who survived the layoffs? And what about the companies that did everything they could to keep the doors open but succumbed to market pressures? Do they deserve loyalty?<br />Can you really separate the "company" and the "people" in all instances? It will be interesting, as I said, to see how this all plays out. Thanks for your comments...really adds some insight to this topic.Anitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07673125042097858304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579284890902840419.post-70490369576324729062009-08-03T21:05:36.516-05:002009-08-03T21:05:36.516-05:00"says that unless you have a sense of loyalty..."says that unless you have a sense of loyalty to the people you work with and what you’re doing then you are likely to be unhappy, no matter how much you’re getting paid.'<br /><br />That is not loyalty to the corporation or employer. It is loyalty to the people you work with, something completely different than loyalty to your employer.<br /><br />Given the layoffs, the flat income increases over the last 10 years, and increasing outsourcing, why would anyone be loyal to a company?<br /><br />If we believe all the pundits, you will network your way to your next job. That requires loyalty to the people you work with, not a company.Scot Herrickhttp://cuberules.comnoreply@blogger.com