Loyalty Part II - Employees

It is interesting what people expect compared to what they are willing to give in return. It didn't even take 7 years in management, not to mention 12 years in HR, to figure out that some employees expect the world for their periodic presence in the building. On the other hand, some employees will give their time, home life and physical well-being for nothing more than their pay check. The tremendous dichotomy could be urban as opposed to rural, young vs. old, or maybe it is a simple matter of values and integrity. Some employees display high levels of loyalty from day 1 including speaking only positives about the company, defending the company against negative statements,performing above and beyond job expectations, and working to bring teammates together. Some take time to decide if their managers and company provisions meet their expectations. The lines of jobs blur for them and they want to see their managers working on hourly tasks and to see the company give large amounts of paid time off and benefits. If the bosses meet their expectations, they will do the work and maybe put in a little extra over time. Others, decide that being hired is their ticket to a pay check for as long as they want. They feel that work should not directly interfere with their social life (texting, chatting with friends on the clock, cell phone calls). They extend this social life into gathering friends and followers at work, because they need someone around to complain about their job. Obviously, any job that digs into their free time must be a bad deal. The funny part is that the company would be content with an employee that comes to work on time, does their job, and doesn't say anything bad aobut them. It seems easy enough. It makes sense that selection processes would touch on this more, instead the usual practice of measuring this only in existing employees. We aren't in charge of the social systems that cause some to be ultra loyal and others to be disloyal, but there must be better ways to bring in those that are more likely to be loyal. We'll explore this in Part 3 - Employers