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On loyalty to your employer (2018)

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Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#321

Post by hintymad »

I think a strong loyalty towards a company will work only in a society like Japan: companies are culturally committed to taking care of them employees until their death. In the meantime, the income gap between ordinary employees and the executives is small. Per this article (https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-reality-check-4-i...): "The biggest difference between the Salaryman CEO and the Superstar CEO is, of course, the absolute gap in CEO compensation relative to average employee pay: in Japan this is now just about 50-times (for top 50 CEOs; the average is about 12-times)". And there is a seniority system. In contrast, the US companies have none of those.

I'd rather subscribe to Reed Hoffman's notion on company-employee relationship: alliance. That is, a company and its employees are allies. It is a two-way relationship that enables companies and employees to work together toward common goals, even when some of their interests differ. If either a company or an employee feels that the alliance does not exist any more, they part ways. Note that this notion is orthogonal to the power dynamics between a company and its employees. The power dynamics has to do with supply-and-demand of the market and the negotiation power of the employees.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#322

Post by bornfreddy »

metters wrote: post #316
MangoCoffee wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But in smaller groups and smaller communities, where you're actually working with people, loyalty and even affection can really make a difference in how satisfying your worklife is, how much security you can feel in your opportunities, etc I've been in IT for over 20 years, mostly working in small to mid-sized companies. Small companies will let you go as soon as they feel a pinch. every company is the same, no matt…

> You're expected to give two weeks' notice, but they can let you go without any notice. Luckily, this is not the case where I live. Both sides have the same amount of notice

Same here. And the usual amount is 2 months, not weeks. Of course it can be (and often is) shorter if both parties agree.

That said, the real safety is in accumulated money you can live on when all goes south. I'd personally take bigger salary over longer notice any day of the week.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#323

Post by int_19h »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #215
ashoeafoot wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all of these things do not deserve loyalty. There are values i hold dear, if a philosophy or state holds on to the same values, i support them. If they turn away from them, no reason to be loyal.

Are you perhaps confusing loyalty to an incumbent regime with loyalty to a nation or people?

Not really. Have you ever heard a saying, "right or wrong, my country"? That's exactly the kind of toxic stuff that loyalty to entities leads to.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#324

Post by lurk2 »

fwip wrote: post #263
gorbachev wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a special form of small company that's even worse. It's the kind where "we're a family". Those are worse than anything a big company bureaucracy / bean-counting could ever be.

The small and successful company (~100 people) my brother-in-law works at is currently self-destructing, specifically because the CEO is that exact kind of family-loyalty "father figure" wannabe.

Is it failing because he is being taken advantage of or is it failing because he is trying to take advantage of others?

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#325

Post by [deleted] »

rckt wrote: post #103

I got it pretty early in my career that loyalty for a company is concept to make you work harder without asking anything in return. And the moment the company shifts focus and you are out of it, then suddenly you understand that this loyalty wasn't kind of a credits account which you've been saving all this time. It's simply nothing. You are on your own and can fuck off. So there's simply no place for loyalty in empl…

[deleted]

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#326

Post by maccard »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #80
motorest wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Travelling isn’t the be all and end all of things either remember. I think you're missing the whole point. For you, traveling might not be that fun. For OP's uncle, apparently it was. He had to forego that because of reasons. I do a fair share of traveling. I love it, and a few of my most cherished memories come from trips I did. This might come as a surprise to you, but the whole point of traveling is not to go fr…

Yup, many of the folks responding are glossing over this line in my OP: > Had they already experienced everything good there is to experience in this one lifetime that they were so bored of it that they would prefer to work instead?

But every other point you r made in the the replies here has been about travel and how it can be done when people have suggested other priorities

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#327

Post by devmor »

"Mutual Respect" is the key term here for sure, and I wholeheartedly agree.

I have worked for a lot of employers that did not respect me, and I, despite all intentions, eventually came to not respect them with my work effort.

My current employer does a lot to show that they respect my time and effort. As such, the lethargy in my work effort that has been present while working for other employers does not exist. I am just as energetic and invested in my work here as I was when I started.

I think that this is certainly a lesson not just for employees when considering career moves, but a lesson for employers who are interested in retaining talent. In my opinion, it should be a no-brainer; treat your employees well and they will treat you well. Conversely, treat your employees as an expendable resource and do not be shocked when their resourcefulness to your company is expended.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#328

Post by int_19h »

dspillett wrote: post #206
simpaticoder wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing". A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". A sports-team or TV show or band is a thing, loyalty to it is called "fandom". Loyalty to an idea or philosophy is called "being principled" or "idealism". Do you believe that things don't deserve loyalty, such that all of these are errors? Or do these examples not capture the sense of your stateme…

> A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself. People often see their “external tribes” as an extension of their self much likely they do family/friends, rather than them being part of it like a company. I am a Spillett. I am a Yorkshireman, I am English, I am UKian, I am European, I work for TL. Notice t…

> That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself.

I would argue that this is a tit-for-tat, and as such, not really an example of loyalty per se. Loyalty would be protecting your country even when it doesn't actually benefit you and yours in any tangible way. And it has all the same problems as corporate loyalty, really.

Re: On loyalty to your employer (2018)

#329

Post by usrusr »

rckt wrote: post #103

I got it pretty early in my career that loyalty for a company is concept to make you work harder without asking anything in return. And the moment the company shifts focus and you are out of it, then suddenly you understand that this loyalty wasn't kind of a credits account which you've been saving all this time. It's simply nothing. You are on your own and can fuck off. So there's simply no place for loyalty in empl…

There's more to loyalty than imagining it as a credits account.

The baseline is absence of disloyalty, which does not mean "stay aboard despite lower pay or benefits" but simply not cheating the organization you are (or were) part of. An employer who has to distrust every move of their employees will inevitably be a terrible employer to work at. No matter how hard they try not to be.

Not going below that baseline won't magically protect you from bad employers, but going below will inevitably turn any employer you work at into a bad employer, at least if enough of your peers aren't above following your example.

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