Employer-Employee Loyalty Is an Outdated Concept Read the Point and Counterpoint
ID: 3444483 • Letter: E
Question
Employer-Employee Loyalty Is an Outdated Concept
Read the Point and Counterpoint arguments and answer the question listed below:
Which argument do you agree with (point or counterpoint)? Explain your reasoning. (one page)
Point
The word loyalty is so outdated it is practically laughable. Long gone are the days when an employer would keep an employee for life, as are the days when an employee would work for a single company for his or her entire career.
Workplace guru Linda Gratton says, “Loyalty is dead – killed off through shortening contracts, outsourcing, automation and multiple careers. Faced with what could be 50 years of work, who honestly wants to spend that much time with one company? Serial monogamy is the order of the day.”
Right or wrong, the commitment on each side of the equation is weak. Take the example of Renault. It ended the 31-year career of employee Michel Balthazard (and two others) on charges of espionage. The problem? The charges were proved false. When the falseness of the charges became public, Renault halfheartedly offered the employees their jobs back and a lame apology: “Renault thanks them for the quality of their work at the group and wishes them every success in the future.”
As for employee’s loyalty to their employers, that too is worth little nowadays. One manager with Deloitte says the current employee attitude is, “I’m leaving, I had a great experience, and I’m taking that with me.” There isn’t just one expectation of loyalty. In fact, only 9 percent of recent college graduates would stay with an employer for more than a year if they didn’t like the job, research showed.
The sooner we see the employment experience for what it is (mostly transactional, mostly short- to medium-term), the better off we’ll be. The workplace is no place for fantasies.
Counterpoint
There are employers and employees who show little regard for each other. That each side can be uncaring or cavalier is hardly a revelation. No doubt such cynical attitudes are as old as the employment relationship itself.
But is that the norm? And is it desirable? The answer to both of these questions is no.
Says management guru Tom Peters, “Bottom line: loyalty matters. A lot. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.” University of Michigan’s Dave Ulrich says, “Leaders who encourage loyalty want employees who are not only committed to and engaged in their work but who also find meaning from it.”
It is true that the employer-employee relationship has changed. For example, (largely) gone are the days when employers provide guaranteed payout pensions to which employees contribute nothing. But is that such a bad thing? There is a big difference between asking employees to contribute to their pension plans and abandoning plans altogether (or firing without cause).
Moreover, it’s not that loyalty is dead, but rather that employers are loyal to a different kind of employee. Gone are the days when an employer would refuse to fire a long-tenured but incompetent employee. But is that the kind of loyalty most employees expect today anyway? Companies are loyal to employees who do their jobs well, and that too is as it should be. Constantly training new employees wears down morale and profitability.
In short, employees still expect certain standards of decency and loyalty from their employers, and employers want engaged, committed employees in return. That is a good thing – and not so different from yesterday. Says workplace psychologist Binna Kandola, “Workplaces may have changed but loyalty is not dead – the bonds between people are too strong.”
Source: P. Korkki, “The Shifting Definition of Worker Loyalty,” New York Times (April 24, 2011), p. BU8; Is Workplace Loyalty an Outmoded Concept?” Financial Times (March 8, 2011), http://www.ft.com/; O. Gough and S. Arkani, “The Impact of the Shifting Pensions Landscape on the Psychological Contract,” Personnel Review 40, No. 2 (2011), pp. 173-184.
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I agree with the counterpoint that loyalty is not dead but it has only taken a different shape. The whole market economy, generous availability of workforce, automation etc. have given loyalty a new face. No business will thrive if there is no proper human interaction and relationship. The relationship is not personal but more of work related, transactional.
When an employee accepts a job from an employer on accepted terms and conditions, the employee should cooperate and help the employer to achieve those agreed goals of the company. So the employee agrees initially to do a particular task in an acceptable way within an agreed time period. As time pass, if the employee doesn’t contribute as he or she had agreed, the productivity of the company will become a question mark. These employees will become a liability to the company because they would prevent others from working effectively, else they will be caught in comparison with the other employees. So, in this case the employer has all the right to terminate the employment. So, in this case the employee fails to show the employee’s loyalty thus ending the transaction.
On the other hand, employer agrees to provide some benefits, salary, safe workplace environment etc. which the employer need to keep up. The employers to day have got more benefits for their employees that the yesteryears. The workplace has changed a lot that the employees need to understand the need to perform well in order to be recognised and eligible for these benefits. Employers not only expect their employees to contribute to the regular work but if an employee contributes beyond his work that’s considered to be the perfect criteria for loyalty because it’s very reciprocal. Employers expect their employees master interpersonal skills that would help them survive in the workplace, thus promoting lot of interaction that would bring trust and bonding between the employees and the employer. So, loyalty is not dead but it has taken a different shape.
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