Is The Concept Of Employee Loyalty Obsolete?

Today, even when an analyst sees economic instability, political uncertainties, currency fluctuations, can one ignore the surge of opportunities in these geographies? You can ignore it only at your peril.

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We are increasingly ‘on the move’ or so the data says. From the average one-job-life-time, we have officially reached the stage of ‘11- 60’. It denotes a recent research in the EMEIA region which pegged that an average professional starting her career after 2010 will change at least 11 jobs by the time she hangs her boots by sixty. Of course, the larger question is the fact that this number of changes is changing as the years go by, and the research now modifies the number to 14. Also, contentious is the fact of the ‘sixty year exit gate’ since most professionals today continue working, ‘consulting’ and advising till the age of seventy. With change being the norm, is the concept of employee loyalty even worth debating? A short answer – Yes, employee engagement and loyalty are equally important today if not more.

When I started my career with Tata Motors two decades ago, we went through an elaborate two year training period before being assigned higher operational responsibilities. A significant number of engineers quit in the first three years – mostly to pursue a management qualification or a post-graduation from a university abroad. Ratan Tata, during those days, famously quoted that he was not afraid and annoyed with this higher attrition. He strongly advocated that each of these young engineers will become brand ambassadors of the Tatas for many years to come and also perhaps find their way back to the group. True, many of us have continued on and built careers in different industries but the fondness for the Tatas still remain.