What employees say about company loyalty “I would recommend this company as a place to work to a family member or friend.” The response to that statement can reveal a lot about the loyalty employees feel toward an organization. Recommendations would not occur if the recommender didn’t feel some loyalty. I would say that in all the sessions I’ve done, the majority of employees would recommend their company as a good place to work to a friend or family member. It’s a good feeling to be able to feel loyalty toward anything, let alone the company one works for. And digging deeper, I think most employees want to feel loyal to their company. Full understanding and appreciation of a company mission as well as a sense of security help stoke the fires of loyalty. But what really appears to engender it is whether or not a company is transparent and operates in a manner employees can be proud of. For example, I know of a company where the CEO announced at a management meeting that 125 jobs would be cut this year. However, about three weeks later a Chicago Tribune article about the same company suggested that 400 jobs would be cut. This is the kind of company behavior (unintentional maybe) that results in the following comment on loyalty I’ve recorded on more than one occasion: “I feel loyal to the organization but I don’t know that’s it’s loyal to me.” Another question I find revealing is this—if you have thought of resigning in the last six months, what would a reason be other than pay, career advancement, boss or benefits? Following are some responses: “Inadequate staffing.” “Life is too short.” “Unexpected workload.” “You can only take so much.” “Completely overwhelmed with work.” “Lack of support.” “Health.” “Negative work environment.” “Stress.” “Being able to make a difference.” “Hit the lottery.” Other than hitting the lottery (and some people have gone back to work after winning a jackpot!). I believe the most of these responses are symptomatic of work environments that could be improved with strong, caring and empathetic management. The sentiments mentioned above are cancerous and can easily impact productivity and morale. I recently had an experience with two companies that left me empty. The first was that my domain name for my business expired and the company that had it never contacted me. When I got on the phone to them, they claimed it wasn’t their responsibility to contact me because I had transferred from their hosting service. I couldn’t believe that the company had that policy nor could I believe that it would take at least a day to get the site back up. But you know what bothered me most? That I never got an acknowledgement from the person I was working with about the dismay I felt. If the person at the company had just said something like, “I understand how you feel about losing your site for a day and I understand you feel our policy is lacking and I really empathize with you, but let me help you get this fixed as soon as possible,” it would have really assuaged my ill will. The other situation was similar. Both of them made me realize that detecting and acknowledging feelings is good business, because, although both companies were reasonably competent, I would hesitate to recommend them because of that neglect. This has nothing to do with management and falls into the “maybe it’s me, but…..” category. So, maybe it’s me but does it seem like an awful lot of movies and media feature a character vomiting? I cite the following: Primary Colors, Blades of Glory, Factotum and most recently an Etrade commercial featuring a baby spitting up. I have two questions. Do people really vomit that much in real life (I can’t recall the last time I vomited but I’m pretty sure it was because of an illness) and is it really necessary to show this act to viewers? I’d suggest an answer of no to each of those questions. So, please, let’s have media content for absorption not regurgitation! Steve Wyrostek Is president of Gentle Ears, Inc. in Des Plaines. Contact him at 847-803-6991 or at steve@gentleears.com

Posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 (Archive on Tuesday, June 03, 2008) Posted by jstoltz  Contributed by jstoltz

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