5, Who is a loyal employee

The newsletter on Human Resource expert opinion, for the Indian context

Loyalty is a very interesting word to be used in today's context. Employee loyalty has been used for many years as an important measurement factor, and even today, a lot of organisations talk about it.

The old age Indian companies, and a lot of multinationals which come from particular countries, where people work for 10 to 20 years, assume and proudly state that these employees are loyal.

For this discussion, I would not like to combine loyalty to tenure. I would like to state that employee loyalty is more about an employee doing what they have to, and doing that with their utmost sincerity. That is what we say employee loyalty is.

employee loyalty is more about an employee doing what they have to, and doing that with their utmost sincerity

Maybe historically, employee loyalty meant tenure, that a person is not leaving an organisation and going somewhere else, but today, what loyalty means is that even if someone works in an organisation for 6 months, during these six months the person is going to perform with their life and heart in it, their soul is going to be here, in that job. The person will be 100% honest in terms of their work. And whatever the person needs to do, they are going to do. That is loyalty towards an organisation.

perform with their life and heart in it, their soul is going to be here . . . . . that is loyalty towards an organisation

End of six months, it may happen that the person leaves the employer for whatever reasons. But during the short 6 months, the person was loyal.

Therefore, in today's context we don't believe that only people who stay in an organisation for more than three years, four years or five years, are loyal, and anybody who is working with an organisation for less than two - three or five years is not a loyal employee.

This kind of belief, is not fitting into today's context.

Today's context is more about delivery. and if we, as managers and employers understand this, if we, as managers understand this concept of loyalty, life is going to be interesting and exciting and less painful, both for the employee and the manager.

Today's context is more about delivery. . . . life is going to be less painful, both for the employee and the manager

Whatever heartbreaks and whatever friction we have whenever someone resigns needs to be removed. As long as the person is loyal, I think we should be more than happy for whatever time they spend with us in an organisation and happily let them move on to life.

Who knows, they may come back or who knows they may add value to you, be your brand ambassador. But the bottom line is, the meaning of loyalty is very different than what it was historically.

the meaning of loyalty is very different than what it was historically

India HR Guide is aimed at discussing and shedding light on aspects in a crisp manner that organisations in India follow in the area of Human Resources. It is aimed at CEO's, MD's and line managers to understand how various aspects of Human Resources can help shape their organisations journey in India. Our industry leading expert, Mandeep Singh, offers years of accumulated knowledge from having advised clients across sectors, and spread across the remotest corner of the country. Let's make the workplace, a better place.

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