[cajobportal Insights] Are Loyal Employees Getting Left Behind?

It’s that time of the year when employees are being reminded to complete their self-appraisal in the online system. In a few days from now, the manager also will complete the appraisal of their subordinates. It would be then time for the Compensation & Benefits team in the HR function to consolidate the results. Often they would be applying the Bell Curve to distribute the rewards kitty systematically, separating the grain from the chaff. Once published, the results set in motion a flurry of events.

1. There would be the superstars basking in the glory of being recognised, the new Virat Kohlis of the world.
2. There would be the usual cribbers who have been ignored and left behind yet again. For them, this dejection is an annual affair. “This company will never recognise loyal employees. Just because I have stuck around, the HR seems to have started believing that I have lost my market value.”

 Is that a fair assumption to make that companies tend to take loyal employees for granted?

With experience comes wisdom. At least that’s what we’d like to believe

The standard HR retort is that “Just because an employee wants more money, doesn’t mean they should get it. From a business standpoint, you can’t afford to keep giving incremental increases to someone without getting higher skill levels. For the job band to change, the job responsibilities also have to change”

The reality is that employees can reach a cap in their earning potential at a company.

A survey conducted by Forbes came up with startling results - Staying employed at the same company for over two years, on average, will plummet your lifetime earnings by about 50%. Keep in mind that 50% is a conservative number at the lowest end of the spectrum. This is assuming that your career is only going to last 10 years. The longer you work, the greater the difference will become over your lifetime. This is because the average employee can expect a raise of about 5-6% when staying with the same company, but they might receive a 15-30% increase when leaving and starting a new job. The job hoppers are an active part of the process, not merely a passive recipient of the deal.

Even if it may not be totally correct in the context of every company and every function, there is a school of thought which believes that people who jump ship rewarded, while loyal employees are often punished for their dedication

A company that we analysed for this piece has a practice of giving a long term “Shaabashi Award” for employees who complete a specified number of years in terms of tenure. If we speak strictly in materialistic terms, setting aside the respect factor, the disgruntled employee showed the Titan watch was all he had got in return for his loyalty.

In another case, one of our known acquaintances in the banking sector, a Chartered Accountant by academic profession, has changed 6 jobs in the last 15 years and has very quickly risen through the ranks to head the SME Banking sector for a leading MNC Bank. With every job change, comes a market correction through a series of negotiations with the new employers. As a result, his Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in terms of CTC has been far in excess of what he would have got in case he stuck around to his first job as a CA freshe with frequent job changes comes stability. He says that if you never have to look for a job, then you don’t develop the skills to move on quickly and efficiently and are instead stuck being too dependent on the one employer you know

In a third case, post the appraisal cycle, an employee, known to be the blue-eyed boy in the company, appeared for an interview with a rival and secured an offer letter. He used to same to tender his resignation and secure a matching hike in the existing company, which really didn’t want to lose such a talented guy.

Recognition by Resignation, it seems, is the new mantra.

With changing social values, some job hoppers proudly state that “I work for Money, if you want loyalty hire a Dog “

And if consider their CTC growth trajectory, the same also seems to indicate that this strategy has been well reciprocated by employers as well.

Often while working on recruitment mandates, we suddenly chance across profiles of candidates who have stuck around since years with the same company. While this could a laudable character trait, we often find the person to be gripped by inertia, to be attuned to a comfort zone and thus maybe not be worth his/her grain of salt. Their work profile is good, often a perfect fitment for the requisition from our clients. But their CTC is way below market standards. The HR also asks me” Sonia, why is his CTC so low, even after so many years” and I reply “Mam, he has stuck around with the same company”

Those employees that stay in their jobs for 10 years or more are either too scared to move on because they get comfortable doing the same thing day in and day out therefore not wanting to change, or are poorly skilled at what they do because they have had no training or advancement and would not have a competitive advantage in the job market.

In other worlds, job hoppers are believed to have a higher learning curve, be higher performers, and even to be more loyal, because they care about making a good impression in the short amount of time they know they’ll stay with each employer. They build a more diverse and expansive set of competencies than a loyal employee may have otherwise had, also another outcome of multiple jobs is that he/she gains a larger pool of people that relish the chance to endorse, praise, recommend and refer him/her. They have the ambition to learn, quest for broader challenges and desire to continuously grow through exposure to new industries, environments and experiences.

Perhaps our old ideas about job hopping are out-of-date. Today's workers expect more and are willing to go after what they need and want. This could lead to some very positive financial and professional outcomes and realignment of organisational strategies of employee engagement and retention.

"Job-Hopping" may have become a necessary evil in today’s times and actually lead to a more colourful as well as prosperous life.

Read this article online at https://blog.cajobportal.com/are-loyal-employees-getting-left-behind/

'As an amateur in the human capital space, we at Team cajobportal.com would love to hear your views on the above

Have a great weekend ahead