Several folks this morning linked to the itsallwrong post about Gen-Yers, their tendency to job-hop and their disloyalty and while I don’t disagree wholly with the post there is one part that got me going. I wholeheartedly disagree that Gen-Yers are disloyal, I think that job-hopping is also not inherently being disloyal. I purposely chose the title to have two meanings. I think that Gen-Yers are actually very loyal, but they also are only willing to return loyalty to the degree that they receive.
I did some quick searching around on Brazen Careerist and found some similar thoughts about Gen-Y loyalty. I’d be remiss not to acknowledge them as well. Whether it is Teresa Cantwell talking about how loyalty can change when management or company vision, Beth Harris talking about how young workers don’t return loyalty, or Ryan Healy talking about some of the ways that Gen-Yers and companies will show loyalty to each other in the future, the underlying theme is the same. I will show loyalty to a company if a company shows loyalty to me! It has to go both ways and Gen-Y is just a group of people that are willing to stand up for that.
Personally, I am a very loyal person, loyal to a fault. I stayed with my last job up until I was physically starting to get sick because I did not want to put my teammates that I had worked with for multiple years in the position of having to cover my work as well. I don’t think I’m any sort of exception either.
So why does Gen-Y get this rap? One thought that comes to mind is management. I was taught that strong loyalty is something that is earned by management or the company, not something that is automatically deserved. Pay particular note to the strong qualifier there. A small bit of loyalty has to be given for a company going out and taking a chance on hiring someone. Let’s face it, the hiring process requires a bit of a gamble and a company deserves some credit for that.
Once an employee gets past orientation and starts working for real then there has to be some give and take. When I was a manager at a bar / restaurant I learned that one way to win loyalty was to be willing to do the crappy jobs and offload some off of my employees. I would take the worst job of cleaning the bathrooms at the of each night when I was head bouncer or manager instead of making the new guy or girl do it as would be natural. This won thanks from my employees and when I asked them to do something they were much more apt to be glad to because they knew that I would do it. When was the last time you saw a manager take the worst part of a job off of an entry level staffer? Those that you have seen do that are people whose employees appreciate them right?
It sounds a little odd but I honestly took what Conan O’brien had to say on his last show to heart about not becoming cynical. I am not trying to be cynical here, I’m trying to be realistic. If companies out there realize that what we will give loyalty as we get then they will get a much better response out of Gen-Y. I don’t think it is something that we will give in on either, it is part of who we are. Look at points 3 and 4 from Ryan’s post if you want a few ideas on how to win loyalty. And going forward can we finally stop calling Gen-Y disloyal?!
Totally, agree with you, Luke, in that loyalty needs to be earned. Although, sometimes, blaming “companies” is a bit of a cop out. Companies can’t be loyal. People can be loyal. Yes, a company can encourage a certain atmosphere, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to who you work for.
I work for a large corporation, and I’m incredibly lucky in that my boss rocks, as does his boss. I’ll work my ass off for them, but I can easily see myself not being anywhere near as eager if I worked for other people in the company. Similarly, I try to create the same kind of environment for my team. So, maybe it’s not a question of reciprocating loyalty, but instead of just creating the right atmosphere?
Hey Adam,
Thanks for the comment. It is true that it is possible to create a good atmosphere on a small team while other parts of a large company might not be as good to work for. I had something similar happen to me. My immediate boss would go to the mat to fight for me, but the next tier and surrounding management wasn’t as supportive. My boss’s support kept me in my job for probably a year longer than I would have lasted without.
It sounds like, if you take a little while to think about it, your boss and his boss have both won a certain amount of loyalty from you already. That’s what a good manager does, that’s what in the end large companies as a whole will have to do to keep young workers at a higher rate.
Here’s something I found interesting. Companies that took measure to help employees in the recession.
http://bit.ly/bO892s
I was going to link back to your own post on Gen-Y in the workplace until I linked your name. Your line about layoffs and that “Eventually it will happen to us all” really struck me. That really gets to what I was trying to say. Until companies change that mentality to just accept the layoffs then our generation won’t stick with the companies.
Thanks for making me think back through this. I see the slightly different viewpoint that you were taking in your post. It is interesting and will make me think a bit more now.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by James Ryan Moreau, Isao Kato and Luke Berg, Luke Berg. Luke Berg said: Gen-Y is not disloyal. They are as loyal as they get! http://bit.ly/auooC5 [...]
Hi, Luke – great post. This issue gets thrown around all the time and it is nice to have some good convo about it. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said, “[Loyalty] has to go both ways and Gen-Y is just a group of people that are willing to stand up for that.”
The rest of my response got a bit lengthy, so I finished it on my blog: http://www.itsallwrong.wordpress.com. Would love any more feedback you might have!