Company Loyalty

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Nerdius Maximus wrote:

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This. Anyone who blindly trusts that a big corporation is looking out for his best interests is a fool.

It wasn't always like this, though.

Now, this is gospel truth.

I worked for RHI and was very loyal to them, and they nixed me because they were afraid of what the economy might do.

I now work for a smaller staffing firm, and I know that my boss/owner of the company cares about what happens to me.

As long as I do my best and do well for the company, he'll do right by me. The bigger corps just don't care. Why should they? They can just crank out another person to take your place.

[Robert Maxwell]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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It wasn't always like this, though.

Now, this is gospel truth.

I worked for RHI and was very loyal to them, and they nixed me because they were afraid of what the economy might do.

I now work for a smaller staffing firm, and I know that my boss/owner of the company cares about what happens to me.

As long as I do my best and do well for the company, he'll do right by me. The bigger corps just don't care. Why should they? They can just crank out another person to take your place.

Even when the boss likes you, if they have to serve the interests of other people they will still can you if they must.

The President (and founder and former CEO) of my last employer was deeply upset by the layoffs, but he also had no choice. The board was unanimous and all he could do was fight specific cuts. He couldn't stop the cuts from happening at all--in fact, they wanted to cut much deeper, and they later did so.

So, it all depends on who has the final say. You could have the greatest boss in the world, but if retaining you is not something he has final say over, it's not worth much.

[JoeZhang]

Company Loyalty is madness, you should always be looking out for yourself.

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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Even when the boss likes you, if they have to serve the interests of other people they will still can you if they must.

The President (and founder and former CEO) of my last employer was deeply upset by the layoffs, but he also had no choice. The board was unanimous and all he could do was fight specific cuts. He couldn't stop the cuts from happening at all--in fact, they wanted to cut much deeper, and they later did so.

So, it all depends on who has the final say. You could have the greatest boss in the world, but if retaining you is not something he has final say over, it's not worth much.

This is why I prefer small companies where the person with the final say is both my boss and the owner of the company.

[Robert Maxwell]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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This is why I prefer small companies where the person with the final say is both my boss and the owner of the company.

Yeah. I am on a first-name basis with the CEO and CFO of this company. They're good guys. They interviewed me personally and I still talk to them on a regular basis. Even so, I can't assume they wouldn't slash things to the bone if the company hit a rough patch. I guess I'm just a bit cynical about it anymore.

[Adm_Hawthorne]

At the very least, I'd get advanced warning, and I have good feel for how the company is doing as opposed to being chopped without warning on the basis of what might happen years down the road.

[Robert Maxwell]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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At the very least, I'd get advanced warning, and I have good feel for how the company is doing as opposed to being chopped without warning on the basis of what might happen years down the road.

I thought I had a good feel at my last job, until I found out the officers were purposely massaging the numbers to make things look better than they were. "We didn't quite hit budget, but it's not so bad because our EBITDA is still decent..." Which turned out to actually mean, "We are seriously bleeding cash and it's only by screwing with the ledgers that we can make this look half-decent!"

I don't actually see the numbers here, we just get a memo every quarter that says if we're losing money or not.

[Adm_Hawthorne]

I do most of the numbers here.

I suppose that's why I don't feel the bitterness.

[Robert Maxwell]

You do have a leg up on those of us who aren't involved with the numbers!

[Guartho]

I'm getting closer and closer to being able to hire someone here at my business. I can promise you that if I have an employee with J's above stated attitude he had for Dell, I'll cut my own personal income before I consider letting him or her go.

So, I conclude that company loyalty in a small business is going to be worthwhile.

[J. Allen]

Guartho wrote:

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I'm getting closer and closer to being able to hire someone here at my business. I can promise you that if I have an employee with J's above stated attitude he had for Dell, I'll cut my own personal income before I consider letting him or her go.

So, I conclude that company loyalty in a small business is going to be worthwhile.

There's a manufacturing facility about 100 miles of here that makes tools. They're a medium sized company, and they have a policy: No one gets laid off. People can be fired for a myriad of reasons, like being constantly late or performing poorly over a long period of time. All they ask is that you do your best and perform well, following all procedures and staying within time and productivity constraints, and that if you didn't, you would be fired. While a couple of my friends thought it was wrong to hold such high hire/fire standards, I thought it was more than fair.

I may not have a degree, but I work hard, and I do use my head. That's probably why Walmart got rid of me years ago.

[Cicero]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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Sorry, but I worked for a company that developed long-term relationships with its employees. You wanna know how much they counted for when the chips were down? Fucking squat. Dozens of people who'd been with this company for 20+ years--good people, highly skilled and competent--shown the door because incompetent management ran the company into the ground.

That goes to the point I argued, which is that two-way loyalty is very beneficial to long-term success. The company you worked for either wasn't aware of that lesson, or was very poorly managed. Either way, I'm very sorry to hear what happened.

[FrontLine]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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It wasn't always like this, though.

Exactly. Company loyalty was truly dead when IBM had its first layoff ever on Black Wednesday in 1992. Sure other companies had had layoffs, but not IBM. IBM was known as one of the safest companies to work for. IBM was a family and always took care of its own. IBM's corporate culture was to keep unions out by providing better pay and benefits than any union collective bargaining could ever hope to attain.

When IBM had its first layoff the family died that day. The illusion was broken. Company loyalty was truly dead in corporate America.

[Robert Maxwell]

Cicero wrote:

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That goes to the point I argued, which is that two-way loyalty is very beneficial to long-term success. The company you worked for either wasn't aware of that lesson, or was very poorly managed. Either way, I'm very sorry to hear what happened.

They were indeed poorly managed. It was in the efforts to clean up management that the layoffs happened--they totally restructured the company. I'm just saying it's the rank-and-file people--the ones who truly produced value for the company--who paid the price for managerial incompetence. So much for loyalty, eh?

[Deckerd]

Sarek of Vulcan wrote:

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I was just thinking about the state of our economy, how many corporations are treating their employees, the need for absolute profit over the well-being of the employee (and the customer as well), and I was wondering, does company loyalty still exist? Are any of you loyal to your business, and if so, what keeps you loyal?

Like Iguana I work in a university, so normal profit and loss rules don't apply. I don't for for the Uni however, but for a small centre housed there, which is directly funded by the government, so if the government really has no money this time round, our contracts will run out next March. I've been working there for 20 years and am very loyal to the centre and our achievements over that time. The Uni not at all since they rarely impinge on our day-to-day work.