Modern leadership courses emphasize many things, but loyalty to one’s workplace is not one of them. Loyalty (my definition of it) is considered to be old-fashioned; what’s important is being able to navigate the many and continual changes that come your way as an employee. Don't become too attached to anything because it could all change tomorrow. Don't become too attached or loyal to a project, a job, or a good leader. Be ready to let go of all of it immediately, because you may very well be asked to do that. Be ready for change at all times. That is the modern workplace mantra.
As long as employees do not resist the many changes that are foisted upon them, they are considered 'loyal' in the way that management likes. That is the modern definition of workplace loyalty. If management decides that an employee should move to a new location and start anew, it is expected that the employee do that without questioning the wisdom of their decision. Modern workplace loyalty is doing and saying what workplace leadership wants you to do and say; it is not doing and saying what is often the truth and what is often best for oneself and one’s workplace, because the truth is generally not appreciated, or rather, management does not often wish to be reminded of it, especially when it comes into conflict with the plans and strategies that management wishes to implement. Most managers are not interested in hearing your thoughts/opinions about their decisions, whether they are about your job or the workplace at large. If management decides that a merger is the best course of action for a workplace, they effectuate it even if most employees are opposed to it. That has been my experience in huge public sector workplaces. Employees must simply find a way to deal with the outcome, even if it is an obvious failure on many levels. If management decides that personnel budget cuts are the way to reduce operating costs, they effectuate them, despite the protests and complaints by the employees affected directly by them. If management decides that the remaining employees are to do the work of the employees who have been let go, they will put a spin on that decision and foist it upon the remaining employees. If productivity decreases as a result of this decision, management will not allow employees to remind them that this is a direct result of the budget cuts. Management refuses to face the truth--that it is not possible for two people to do the work of five. Modern workplaces are all about saving money ad nauseam but making sure that top leaders get the generous salaries they feel they deserve. And so on.
Leaders would rather not have to deal with such a tiresome virtue as loyalty, with employees who want what's best for their workplace, who like their workplace, their colleagues, the camaraderie, the shared history, and the interesting projects. It's difficult for most employees to live up to the version of modern worker that most modern workplaces want. The same idea applies when discussions of open office landscapes come up; management will push through that idea despite protests from employees who know from the start how the noise and chaos of open landscapes will affect their productivity. They are not listened to. They are expected to be sheep; just follow management's lead and accept the consequences. If the decision proves to be a huge mistake, they'll find a way to gloss over it so that it is never defined as a mistake. Ergo, it will not be possible to learn from mistakes because there aren't any.
I don’t understand
workplaces that refuse to listen to the good advice and ideas of their
employees who have worked there for many years, who know the history of their
workplaces and the risks involved in going down a particular path. It’s almost
as though the longer you work in one place, the more risk you pose to the
implementation of the plans and strategies of management, because they know
that long-term employees perhaps cannot adapt or might not want to adapt as
readily as short-term employees. They are too loyal to the old way of doing
things. I can understand this from management’s point of view, but it’s
disconcerting to realize that history, experience, and general knowledge are
not valued in the same way as they once were. It’s disconcerting to watch a
workplace under new management make the same mistakes as were made ten years
ago under an older management. It’s disconcerting to know that they did this
because they did not want to listen to the long-term employees. It's disconcerting to watch how long-term employees are pushed aside or frozen out in favor of the younger ones who are more malleable. Eventually, the
longer you stay in one workplace out of a misguided sense of loyalty, the less
valuable you are to that workplace. That is the definition of a modern
workplace. It is no wonder that younger people are less ‘loyal’ in the
old-fashioned sense of the word. Why hang around when your ideas and advice are
not valued? Many of them shift jobs without compunction after five or seven years.
I’ve come to see that as a good thing. I started my career with that attitude,
because I felt that at the seven-year mark, one perhaps needed a change of
venue. It was important to move on in order to grow and develop. But that was a different era when loyalty between employer and employee was a two-way street. Employers may not have wanted you to leave, and they did their utmost to keep you. That is no longer true. But then I moved
to a small country with considerably less career opportunities, and suddenly I
had to face the reality that it wouldn’t be easy to shift jobs the way I might
have been able to do had I stayed in my own country. So I stayed in one place,
in one department, at one hospital. I pursued a doctoral degree, did a postdoc,
and became a scientist, all at the same workplace. Many of my colleagues have
been the same people for the past thirty years. I grew to like that for the
most part—the sense of familiarity and shared history. Thirty
years went by. But during the past ten to fifteen years, much has changed, perhaps not unexpectedly. The sense of
familiarity and shared history are gone. They have been replaced by a feeling
that the sands are constantly shifting under one’s feet. Employees come and go.
Decisions are made, work groups established to implement them, and then they
are abandoned for reasons that are unclear. Few people seem to complain about
the waste of time and effort involved in this type of decision-making, not to
mention the huge costs involved. Everything has become very fluid and relative. It
often feels like the foundations are no longer strong, or that they are now
being built upon shifting sands rather than on solid ground. Many long-term employees have adapted to multiple and continuous changes, but it took time, probably much longer than management preferred. The
result however is that long-term employees stand alone. They feel alone and perhaps abandoned. They feel devalued and useless to some extent. The sense of shared history is gone. The sense of pulling together for a real and important goal is gone. It’s
a strange feeling. I haven’t decided yet whether I like it, but that’s not what’s
important. What’s important is that management likes this way of doing things.
