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Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Is company loyalty gone?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last evening, an annual newspaper ritual was replayed. The company honored employees who had reached a 25-year milestone, as well as those who have worked here longer. The dean of the AJC is sportswriting legend Furman Bisher, who came to work here 56 years ago. He’s followed by a payroll and accounting employee, Frances Seagraves, who was honored last night for reaching the 50-year milestone. I’m a 28-year guy. Nice dinner, nice event.
What was being honored, obviously, is loyalty, a loyalty that goes both ways. Over the course of my work history, that has become rarer. Workers are more inclined now, I think, to job hop, to see work as less central to their lives, and to see the dislocations caused by economic globalization as evidence that gambling a career on one employer is too high-risk. The Atlanta-area plant closings by Ford and General Motors, and similar market pressures on Delta, a Georgia company where employment once signaled status and security, suggest that the employer-employee relationship that was once presumed to be a lifetime contract may be dated. Add to the economic troubles the rampant cynicism that seems to afflict large segments of the population when it comes to corporations and business executives, and loyalty to individual companies is further strained.
Too bad. Corporations, like Delta and Ford and General Motors, did live and reflect cultures that were wholesome and productive. They weren’t just about money, though they were handsomely profitable, and as in Atlanta, they anchored communities and were good corporate citizens. They had values and employees and communities knew what they were. In retrospect, autoworkers and their unions might have been less adversarial in contract negotiations, and management might have been less short-sighted and both might have been smarter in reacting to competition. But at some point they and Delta got a labor-cost structure that their business models couldn’t overcome.
Now the questions: Is employer-employee loyalty a relic? Whether it is or not, control of retirement benefits and health insurance should pass from employer to employee so that workers can move freely, taking their benefits with them. More questions: How do you work now and how do you expect to work in the future? ( I write this from home, were I could stay and work today, but for scheduled candidate interviews at the office.)
