Is Employee Loyalty A Thing Anymore?

[ANNOUNCER]: Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.

[COBY]: Did we lose a patient?

[JAMES]: No, that’s just my lunch.

[COBY]: Hey, thanks for joining us. I’m Coby, he’s James. And before we get started, I want to welcome everyone to the first episode of the third season of diagnosing the workplace. Can you believe we’ve been doing this for. We’ve had two seasons under our belt. It’s pretty awesome.

[JAMES]: I’m surprised people are still listening to us, honestly. Or that they started listening to us, but, it’s a little humbling and a lot of fun.

[COBY]: Absolutely. And, I also wanted to just, put a shout out about our, upcoming, newsletters. So we’re collecting email addresses, there’s a link in the show notes. We, forgot to mention that on the last episode of season two, which we really should have, just remind people to sign up for a newsletter. We’re going to, providing lots, of cool stuff in that. And the first one’s going to be going out at the end of this month. so make sure you check that out. Okay. So I think that’s enough preamble, and enough celebration. So let’s jump into, let’s get started with our question, which is, is employee loyalty a thing anymore?

[JAMES]: So, no, it’s not. And honestly, the way that you’re probably thinking about the more traditional or old school employee loyalty, it never was a thing. Most often when people are talking about employee loyalty or this idea that employees are no longer showing loyalty to their employers, they’re talking about the idea of longevity in a job. Right. People staying with one company for 30 plus years and retiring. you know, that whole idea that you could get a job with a company right out of school or university and stay with them for your entire career and retire with a pension or, you know, even just have the ability to retire, this was deemed as, people showing loyalty to the employer. And honestly, I don’t think that was the case. Sure, there are some people who absolutely would feel a sense of loyalty to a company, especially if they had been treated very well by that company. But I would argue that even in the longevity of employment equals loyalty days, the employer is not what people were loyal to.

[COBY]: Yeah, I think that even if, you know, you look at maybe even a more updated view of, employee loyalty, maybe it’s not 30 years, maybe even just five years. There is. I think what you’re getting at there is really just a fundamental flaw in the concept of what employee loyalty is and what employee loyality was too. Because you’re right. The idea of, well, I’m loyal to this company, they were good enough to give me a job, so they’ve earned my loyalty, was probably how a lot of businesses thought that whole relationship was, but it was really never that way. It was often what they were loyal to was more what they could, what they were provided or what they could provide to their families. And it was, and in many cases, I would argue it’s despite the job and the company that they’re working for.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I mean I look at, and so we’re really talking about kind of the hallmark of the sixties, seventies and eighties, this idea that a single income family could purchase a home, a vehicle, raise a family, and take the occasional vacation, every year. You know, wages were more competitive, or especially comparatively, with today much more in line with the cost of living. And as I said, I would argue that it’s not the employer that they were loyal to, it’s the benefits that come from full time employment and made staying in the job, easier and more convenient than leaving to find something else. People were motivated to stay because of the perks, because what it allowed them to do, you know, they had, you know, more often more likely to have had pension, plans and health benefits and the ability to provide for their families. My argument is that employee loyalty was more about employee motivation, and that companies more often aligned what they offered in terms of compensation, benefits, pensions. That entire employee experience was more aligned with employee motivation than it is currently.

[COBY]: Yeah. And I think that there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of like loaded baggage around the way that loyalty, employee loyalty is spoken about in a lot of companies. There’s a lot of false assumptions and false equivalencies that really are behind that term when it’s used at, you know, at the higher levels in a lot of companies, because they really misunderstand, I think, this whole, the whole relationship the entire time. Because I would argue if the loyalty was mostly to stability, That’s what people were loyal to. I am loyal to the fact that I have a steady income, I have benefits I can rely on, the company’s not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere, and that’s where my loyalty lies. But the thing is that it’s as much of a hallmark in kind of in those like, in like seventies, eighties, you know, kind of idea of this, you know, single income family that can you know, live a, have a good quality of life. What’s as connected to that or as prevalent of that is the. Is the concept of job dissatisfaction. How much. It’s a joke about how much people hated their jobs and, you know, and how begrudgingly they went to work every day and how I suffered and toiled and, you know, you know, at the job all day, and my family doesn’t appreciate, you know, those were the kind of the. That was what embodied that whole idea, right? That I do this job, provide me with stability, but this. And I go there despite the job that I dislike. I’m there for the stability.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I mean, it’s funny, but I mean, that’s. That is the mentality. And part of the mentality was, or at least like my, I remember being told by, relatives that work is not for you to enjoy. Right. Don’t like, especially when I left to, left a stable career to start my own business. Well, work’s not supposed to be fun. It’s work, right? You just, you go, you do your job and you go home. That mentality of, it’s work is about earning enough to provide for my family or allowing me to do the things that actually motivate me. So having hobbies or, you know, going on vacation. But we’ve. Our. Our relationship with work has changed because as we moved away from this idea of, the employee experience and the employee relationship, and we turned it into more of an employee transaction. With companies focusing on downsizing, or, I mean, especially through the nineties.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: There’s a huge, surge of it. the idea that you even showing, quote unquote, loyalty, you know, spending 20 years with a company didn’t guarantee that when, the company hit any type of snag or had to, lay off employees, oftentimes the longevity was worked against you because you were earning more. They could let the long standing employees go and hire somebody fresh out of school at a much lower cost. Like this relationship that, our society shifted away from focusing on providing as work, as providing, stability for the family to work, really just as a transaction for labor, for employers to, use as they see fit, I think is largely responsible for the perceptions that we have today of it’s easier to align, to keep my motivation to provide for my family. It’s easier for me to job hop every three to five years than it is to stay at a company for, you know, 510, 15 years, because I’m going to be able to provide much better if I continuously look for opportunities because people, whether it’s recruitment bonuses or it’s being able to negotiate your salaries better. We don’t have the same relationship to work that we used to.

[COBY]: Well, I think it’s the idea of what stability meant then versus what stability means now. Because stability meant then what I can rely on. M I had job security and I could rely on being able to provide the quality of life because this employers, because the longevity at my company will provide that stability. Now, if you think about it, stability is more around how sure of I am I can get another job quickly.

[JAMES]: Yeah. Do I have stability in my skillset?

[COBY]: Yeah, exactly. How in demand is my, because again, that’s what a lot of kind of mid career people, that’s what, that’s what lets them sleep at night is knowing that they could get another job.

[JAMES]: Quickly if the proverbial stuff hits the fan. When, yeah, when.

[COBY]: But I do think that’s a huge generational mindset difference where you, what lets me sleep at night kind of, you know, you know, for some of the older generations are that the company’s stable. I’m stable there, you know, going to work. The stability, the sameness, the comfort zone, that’s what keeps me, you know, let’s sleep at night where with the younger generation that ideals never, is not available to them and they’ve been raised as unavailable to them. So it’s the idea of, you know, how good are you at, ah, finding a new job, how in demand are your skills? And that really, because even the way that we kind of train the, you know, the young, or the new employees that come in, coming out of school and stuff like that, it’s about how in demand is your skill set, how in demand is this career. That’s what you need to be looking for. High demand, where that was never an issue. You know, kind of like, you know, early nineties, late eighties, that was, it.

[JAMES]: Was never less of an issue.

[COBY]: Yeah, exactly. It was far less of an issue was like, well, just wait for another factory to come in and that’s what’s going to be. Right. So part of it is that, but the other thing too is like the way that you’re kind of talking about it is very, very reflective of larger corporate entities. Kind of like, you know, it is, right, but I think that, but it’s as, it maybe looks a bit different, but it’s as truth, as true and impactful kind of in smaller companies. Because what really comes to mind is it wasn’t that long ago, I remember you telling me you were talking to a, mid, sized nonprofit, and they had, and we’d done some work with them, kind of, off and on. And, what they were kind of talking about was how employee loyalty isn’t a thing anymore. And it was the idea of how they had had a long, they had a long term employees of kind of the core function of their organization. They had employees that were over 20 years. And as those employees retired to their replacements lasted a year to two, Max.

[JAMES]: Yeah, yeah. The manager of this particular segment, within the nonprofit, was, we were talking about a number of things, and like, she was regularly in this recruitment, stage where, they had had retirements, people who had literally been with the nonprofit, since it started, retiring, and they needed to replace those people and the frustrations that, she was experiencing bringing people in, only to have them, jump ship in a year or two. And how for many people, they saw, this particular nonprofit as a stepping stone, the first step in their career, and not a long, term, focus of their career and how. So we, yeah, the, the topic of loyalty absolutely came up in that. And part of our conversation was just challenging them on, well, what are they, what do you expect people to be loyal to?

[COBY]: Mm.

[JAMES]: Right. What, what are you asking them to be loyal to? Are you asking them to be loyal to you as the manager? Are you asking them to be loyal to the nonprofit that has hired them? Are you, are you asking them to just be so incredibly grateful that they have any type of employment that they should ignore other opportunities that come up? This idea of loyalty. Loyalty has to be earned, right? Loyalty. If we want employees to be loyal, we need to show loyalty. We need to act in a way that incentivizes people to stay with us, treat them well. There’s a whole, I mean, go off on a, soapbox here.

[COBY]: And again, like, I do think that you’re being a bit more critical of the organizations than necessarily they warranted. Because, I mean, again, yeah, I mean.

[JAMES]: We are, our conversation shifted from them specifically to loyalty in.

[COBY]: Absolutely, yes. I’m sure you weren’t as like, you know, poignant and sharp tongued when you spoke to them, obviously. But I do think that, generally speaking, in this, in this conversation, you’re being a little more critical. I think then is this, or is, is probably representative of the realities behind them? Because again, this, and I think this nonprofit situation is a great way to, just to kind of dig into that because they were, you know, they tried their best to be a values driven organization. You know, they try and provide the best kind of experience that it possibly can within the restrictions of their funding and everything like that. But the reality of it, it wasn’t so much that they were doing things badly. It was that they weren’t unable or they had not done anything to. Going back to what you said earlier about motivation, they really weren’t able to motivate people to stay in the long term because, I mean, the management team there, there’s a very small management team and they have been around forever. So new employees knew that there wasn’t opportunities to move up in the organization because there was like, you know, one tier above them coming in and they were going to be there for the next ten to 15 years. Yeah. So, so you can’t really move up. there’s very, you know, the or edition provided a lot of good, you know, mission and, you know, you may feel like you’re m making a difference.

[JAMES]: Real impact in the community was great. Yeah, but they, I mean, their wages were largely set by the, the funding agreements that they had in place, like, yeah, I mean, they, they earnestly wanted to do to change things. They had a number of restrictions placed on them. Yeah, but yes, absolutely values driven. Absolutely. ability to make a impact, in, on people’s lives in the community, which is what attracted people in. But it’s great as an attraction that, you know, we’ve talked about purpose many times before and the, you know, ability to, you know, what your purpose, what you’re trying to do to change the world is great to draw people in or to, ignite the initial spark of motivation, but rarely enough to sustain it long term.

[COBY]: Well, and again, part of the problems that we kind of identified were some of the things that they probably could work on was that they, the older staff are still around. From the original inception of the organization, some of them are still around and they’re very stuck in their ways. So they’re very slow to evolve. So, which causes. So things do not progress the way that they want them to. So bringing in someone with new ideas that has a bit of a, you know, that’s a bit ambitious. They would be drawn to that mission, but then they come in there and they say, okay, you’re locked in place. You can’t really be promoted. we’re still doing things the way that everyone’s comfortable doing. So if that doesn’t work for you, then find somewhere else to go. And everyone’s kind of like, sure, that’s what I’m going to do. so a lot of it was, and I think this really might be maybe the answer to kind of the issues around loyalty is going back to what you said about purpose and motivation, because, I mean, what a lot of employees that come into a lot of companies, what they’re loyal to is their own career path, is their trajectory, their growth, their ability to achieve, or they’re loyal to the kind of the relationships they develop within their coworkers, or having a great boss, or things that they kind of cling on to. But when they’re loyal to them, it’s actually more about their motivator. They find purpose in those things. So I actually think that what is probably a better way to have this conversation, in the broad strokes out there in the community, is to talk less about employee loyalty and talk far more about the motivation and purpose that sparks or ignites loyalty in the workplaces. And I think an excellent tool to do that and facilitate that discussion is going to be a program we talked about in a previous podcast episode, which is our igniting motivation. V eight sparks of purpose.

[JAMES]: Yeah. And that motivation, I believe that even in going back to kind of the initial question, even in the more traditional way, of looking at employee loyalty equals longevity in the job, it was m mostly about what motivated people. And employers did a better job of aligning what they had to do with what motivated people. I mean, I think about my parents, right. my dad started his career as, they were both teachers. My dad started his career as a teacher in what it’s probably early seventies, late sixties, early seventies. He’s old. Sorry, dad. but he stayed with, like, he, he was a high school teacher, for 27 years, and then moved into administration at the same school until he retired. And it wasn’t that he was loyal to the school. I mean, sure he felt affinity for the school and probably valued that school community, but he wasn’t loyal to the school. He wasn’t loyal to the school board that he worked for. Right. He had the ability to make a, like, his motivation was being able to make a difference in the lives of students, being able to provide, for his family, you know, being able to like it. Also there are the perks of, you know, having, being able to contribute to a pension so that he could retire, when he wanted to. Right. It was that, that job, that, ah, operand that career matched his motivations. And that’s how you’re right, that’s how we need to look at loyalty. It’s, loyalty is the outcome of aligning motivation.

[COBY]: Absolutely. Yes. No, I think that, I think that’s a really good way to put it. Is that, ah, is that the loyalty that you’re looking for is the result, the consequence, the outcome of focusing on what motivates employees and where they find their purpose? Because I think a great even way to illustrate kind of the reality of probably at least half, if not more of the entire workforce is even back in the seventies, right up until now, there exists this concept I used to talk about a lot when I was working in workforce development, which I referred to as quicksand jobs. And what I mean by that is a job that you step into when you’re looking for stability, but you become stuck in and the longer that you’re in it, the harder it is to leave. And some of them really suck you in and you become buried or more reality you come to dependent on and you can’t leave the jobs even though you really want to.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I like that, I like that idea. I’ve heard you talk about that before. And there are these types of jobs, they’re, they may be, they may, they may not challenge you, they may not provide you with the they may bore you, they may not match your skill set or match your motivations, but they may provide the ability for you to you know, raise a family and you know, they may offer a great benefits and perks and enough to keep you there. That, and that just makes it more difficult to leave. And that can be m, that could, from the outside could look like loyalty. Even though the person’s not loyal to the job, they’re just stuck there because the wages are good enough, the pension, the benefits are good enough, the work isn’t too difficult. So it’s easier for me to stay than it is. The job’s not making me mad enough to have to leave.

[COBY]: Well, that’s just it. Like, I mean. So I was talking to a good, a good friend of mine the other day and who used to be in in radio, and he loved working in that medium, just, and he was so gifted at it. But outside of big urban centers, you really can’t make a good living, you know, you know, in radio at least in his opinion, it didn’t meet.

[JAMES]: His expectation at least.

[COBY]: Well exactly. I mean like he, you know, he loved it, he put all into it. But again, financially, you know, work life balance wise. It was really difficult for him to do so when he had the opportunity to move into kind of like he moved into kind of into a different sector. And he was doing more like you know, kind of like some media stuff. But then he ended up kind of being there wasn’t a lot of work to do in it. So he ended up moving into kind of a sales role in a company. And he’s good at it, but it bores him. It does not challenge him any iota. So it became a m more transactional type of employment where he does, he goes in, does his job, goes home, and then finds his, you know, his sparks of motivation outside of the job. It’s he, and he doesn’t like it. Like he likes the people that he works for. The bosses are nice, but it’s not a job that he enjoys. It’s a job that he begrudgingly goes into every day. But it pays him well enough that it’s hard to leave. And for his background, like I say, where he wants to work, he ah, where he’s trained and skilled and educated to work in. He can’t, you know, make a living without having a total life 180. And totally moving to a big urban center. And even then trying to earn his bones to get into it. So he’s kind of he’s in this quicksand job wherever I. It’s good. It’s good enough to it. Sorry. It’s good enough that he want. That he kind of can’t leave, but it’s not good enough that he wants to stay.

[JAMES]: Well, there’s conflicting motivations. Right. talking about motivation, part of the motivation, like he’s motivated to What motivates him in work is, you know, aligned more closely with that radio

[COBY]: Medium.

[JAMES]: And he doesn’t have that motivation is not being met in his current job, but that motivation is being contrasted or meeting or coming up against another motivation of well, I want to be able to earn a living and provide for my family and save for retirement and all of these other things. So it’s really just a question of which motivation wins out. And right now, the motivation to earn a living, a quality living. And however they define that, is beating the motivation to find work in the field that really fulfills it.

[COBY]: Well, that’s just so going back to kind of breaking down our motivation or any motivation, each production purpose. So just as a sort of. So if We’ll talk about this briefly. But we did a whole episode where we got into this in great detail. And, I’ll put the episode number in the show notes. It’s from our first season on motivating employees through meaning and purpose. But, I’ll, identify the exact episode in the show notes. But quickly, though, just kind of what this concept is, is it’s a program where it helps organizations look for ways to tap into different types of motivation in employees and different types of purpose. So the sparks are the spark of. Spark to provide, which is basically what you just talked about, being able to provide your family with a quality of life. The spark to accumulate, which is about kind of, you know, amassing, whether it’s, comfort or, you know, wage higher wages or prestige, or even just like, you know, better control and better work life balance or those types of things. The spark to be part of something which is just that you want to, you know, join into a larger cause or feel like you belong.

[JAMES]: And the nonprofit did that very well.

[COBY]: Absolutely. the spark of loyalty to others, where you’re mainly motivated by those that you work with, whether that you work for a great boss that, you know is, you know, your loyalty or your motivation to work with them or be part of a great team, is what gets you out of bed in the morning. The spark to achieve, which is the idea you want to accomplish something, which is probably the conflicting motivation for my friend who wants work on radio. He wants to achieve a lot and put all his effort into doing cool things in his medium that he loves. But I think that he’s losing out, like you said, to the spark to provide, then there’s a spark to stay relevant, which is more about, you want to kind of, you know, have your skills be utilized. You want to be part of it too, which I think is another piece for. For him, too. Then the spark to make a difference, which is, again, going back to the nonprofit. You want to help, you want to make the world a better place. And then the last one was a spark to improve yourself. You want to develop yourself more. You, you’re constantly hungry for learning and self development. Self fulfillment is kind of what, again.

[JAMES]: Gives you, that challenges you, that builds your skills, that provides you an opportunity to learn something new. And what I really like about the, your explanation there is that it highlights that people are not motivated by one thing. Right? It’s not about finding that one motivation. All, ah, we are all motivated to some degree by each of the sparks. Right. So being able to tap into as many as possible will be the best outcome. But understanding on an individual level what motivates people, what’s going to motivate them to stay with your organization, to provide the best work, to show, quote unquote, employee loyalty, that’s how you’re really going to end. There’s, there will be conflicting, motivations in there and that if you are not meeting, some of them, many m of these, motivations, then you could lose people even if you’re hitting one, really, ah, important motivation for. So for me, the motivate, the spark to achieve is a big one. it’s what led me to, for, to start the business to, because I want to build something, I want to create something of value. I want to have an impact, and this is a vehicle to allow me to achieve that. there’s a number of motivations that are wrapped up in there, but that’s the prominent one. even if you’re tapping into a really important motivation for somebody, if you’re missing four or five other ones that cumulatively are more important, you’re not going to get the benefit from it. We need to be looking at people on an individual level and what motivates them and try to hit those sparks of purpose as many times as we can if we really want to drive productivity, performance, motivation, longevity. This is a great tool for kind of a lens to look at it through.

[COBY]: Yeah, well, I mean, and this is something that we’ve used very effectively when trying to address things like employee retention. is something that, you know, the idea of how powerful motivation and purpose is to things like employee loyalty and workforce stability and everything else like that too. And the idea of being more tactical and taking into individual preferences into consideration when you’re building a larger strategy, rather than just trying to like, you know, throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and hope for the best, which is what most companies end up doing when they don’t have a strategy. But I think that one thing that I should definitely mention that you’ve, you touched on a few times, but I’ll kind of summarize it a bit, is the realities of motivation. So when I used to like. So again, I used to teach this stuff a lot, you know, before, and some, some of our other training ideas, content is that when we think about motivation, we think about it, well, if I’m motivated to keep this job, my motivation has to be at 100%. Either I’m motivated or I’m not. It’s either yes or no, 100% or 0%. And that’s how a lot of us think motivation is. But we are wrong if we think that our motivation is constantly embattled and constantly against competing motivations. So a great example is the idea of the quicksand job is if your quicksand job, let’s say you work in a factory and you don’t, and it’s hot and dirty, but, you know, and you go home and you’re tired and, you know, you don’t like it, you don’t. People love the environment, but it pays really well, has a great pension and this and that. That’s kind of one of the stereotypical ideas of a quicksand job. And if your quicksand job has, you know, gives you enough with the ability to, instead of, you know, to provide that spark to provide, and you can have a good quality of life, you know, you toiled during your shift, and you go home and you can really, you know, you can have your weekends off and you can, you can go on vacation. You can, you know, give your kids braces, like, you know, all the kind.

[JAMES]: Of stuff you’re working to live, not living to work.

[COBY]: Exactly. That’s a great way to put it. if, you know, you are. That is constantly embattled with all the stuff, all those perks are embattled against the, things that you dislike about the job. So your motivation isn’t 100% into the job. It’s probably, like, 60% motivated to keep the job where the 40% is the. I don’t like my coworkers. I’m always exhausted. You know, it’s. It’s hot and it’s draining, and I’m physically, you know, I’m starting to like, you know, affect my, you know, my health and. And this and that. That’s where you’re constantly competing with. So your motivation is just a little bit higher to stay than it is to leave. And that’s the tenuous, you know, kind of like razor thin margins. Most businesses do not realize their loyalty is built on that razor thin margin.

[JAMES]: And it might be 51% motivated to stay, 49% motivated to leave. Exactly. And what your example does really well is illustrate why it’s so important to. For companies to understand and address the factors that contribute to job dissatisfaction.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: Because what you’re describing there is motivation, to perform versus the elements of job dissatisfaction that are motivating me to leave.

[COBY]: Right.

[JAMES]: So if we can reduce the, instances of job dissatisfaction, then that hopefully shift from 51 49 to, you know, 60 40, eventually 70 30. Right. That the more we can remove those factors that are motivating people to leave, the more we can capitalize on the benefits that come from long term employee retention.

[COBY]: Exactly. And just going back to my friend in the radio, his spark to provide is probably, you know, 55% of his motivation, which is why he stays in these jobs that pay him pretty well but bore him and don’t challenge him, because the spark provide is probably 55% where the combination of the spark to achieve and the spark to stay, stay relevant is probably just going to be at 45. And it’s the idea of his employer can rely, I guess, on his long term employment. As long as those percentages hold. Yeah, but anything to start, to shift.

[JAMES]: Those numbers, you start throwing in dissatisfaction like a man, a micromanager, or, ah, you know, a toxic team, member, or anything else along those lines, and that balance starts to shift. And as soon as there’s a tipping point and he becomes more motivated to leave than he is to stay.

[COBY]: Yeah. And that is, if there’s anything that someone takes away from this conversation, it’s a. We really want to stress how tenuous, how razor thin those percentages of motivation between leaving and staying for the vast majority of employees out there. If you’re in a company and you’re in a leadership role and there are employees and you work for you, you might think that they’re 100% motivated to stay or hundred percent motivated to leave. They are not. A lot of them are probably within a, ten point standard deviation of being able to go in anything. So that’s why news of companies concerned about. Concerned about layoffs or the idea of just getting one bad manager and you see an exodus, you are constantly cruising with a straw to fall on the camel’s back to break it.

[JAMES]: Yeah. And while we’re on the topic, motivation is an incredibly important topic to talk about. And one misconception that I want to clear up is that sometimes we hear people say things like, employees, are not motivated. Well, that’s not true. People are always motivated. It’s just whether or not they’re motivated to work or motivated to do something else. Right. Where is their motivation? Where does their motivation lie? Yeah.

[COBY]: Ah, yeah, well, I mean, like, when we go in and do, like, kind of follow. So again, a catalyst for clients working with us, sometimes it’s, they’ve had a HR crisis and we’re asked to kind of come in and do some kind of initial, why did things go bad? Why do things go wrong? And this and that. And whenever we do. Part of it is just making that, identification, of their motivations kind of clear. If the, what is provided to them, their sense of loyalty and your sense that you can trust them. An employee, you know, in a company is really about goes down to their motivations. Are they motivated to give employee the benefit of the doubt, to be able to kind of be trustworthy? Or are they, concerned about being let go at a moment’s notice? So they start to kind of like plan or exit it out. They’re using their work time to find other jobs because they’re. Because again, that’s their job security, in a sense, how quickly they can get a new job. Sometimes it’s the idea of what is motivating them is the motivation to be a good employee at 51% and 49%, to kind of plan your exit strategy or use your time effectively, or time theft or whatever it is. If that’s the case, the situation that you’re in, then it’s about trying to go in there. And what is the infrastructural realities of your policy practice and perception that is keeping that razor thin margin? And when we go in, we try and say, how can we reduce the things that motivate people to be kind of 1ft out the door? And that’s a huge part of it, is just to realize that you’re constantly hovering around those regions and margins.

[JAMES]: Yeah. The topic of employee loyalty, I think, is, it’s really fascinating to me because we often, so often get it wrong.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: And if we can learn to think of it not as an action, but as an outcome. Then we can start to shift the way that we view loyalty through the lens of motivation. How are we motivating people to stay? Loyalty is not something that just happens. It’s not a m. Spontaneous thing that when, that you automatically deserve as an employer and people to show you loyalty, what you need to do is earn it through matching their motivations.

[COBY]: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that, I think for a lot of middle level managers, business owners, HR professionals who are really kind of who this might have really given them some, something to think about, something to reflect on. I think that our best advice for you would be to really look into our, ignited motivation eight sparks of purpose, program, or at least even the short essentials course we have on our, training platform, roman three academy. here’s what we’ll do. Let’s put a discount code to that online on demand course, into our first newsletter. That way, you know, kind of.

[JAMES]: Like, for the newsletter, because we, I mean, we’ve got a, we talk about a lot of topics, and it’s. Maybe you’re tired of listening to us talk. You can just read our voices instead.

[COBY]: Well, or actually more. There’s lots of videos and everything in there, too.

[JAMES]: But no, I’m.

[COBY]: Yeah. Because largely, what is an important thing for organizations to really consider, again, is there is not a, one answer for all people, answer to loyalty and motivation and purpose. There is really based on personal preference. It’s based on personal. On their background on, again, the thing, the priorities they have in their lives. And if you understand, again, the eight sparks of purpose, you can kind of, you know, be able to have a bit of different, approaches and, you know, be able to kind of diversify your efforts to make sure that you’re capturing as much you possibly can. But what our program really tries to promote as a really effective method is an organizational wide initiative, to kind of help assess what are the sparks of motivation that are motivating each individual employee and then providing that information back to the company so they can be more tactical and realize, wow, we have a lot of employees here that are motivated by the spark of loyalty to others, for example. So maybe we need to do more to kind of bring people together and improve belonging and, you know, and improve these kind of interpersonal connections.

[JAMES]: And those social activities can be a great process, for that. But also, you may discover that you do a lot of social activities, but not many people are motivated by that. Right, right. So it’s aligning, it’s a nice way of aligning your strategy with what people, what actually motivates people.

[COBY]: Yeah, exactly. Because, we really do need to think different. We need to completely rethink what comes to mind with employee loyalty. Because you’re right, the 30 year career that I can rely on is a fable.

[JAMES]: It a unicorn now.

[COBY]: It is. It really doesn’t, doesn’t exist anymore. And again, job security and kind of, and stability is now understood as how quickly I can jump into a new position. And that’s how the majority of, especially, you know, the younger generations. That’s what they mean by stability.

[JAMES]: That’s what we’ve taught them. That’s by our actions.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: We have shown people, we have taught people how to treat us.

[COBY]: Yeah, exactly.

[JAMES]: As company, as employers.

[COBY]: Yeah. So loyalty is something that we need to realize that, you know, it’s something that we can’t, that we can’t just wish existed again. We’ve created we’ve kind of made our bed. Now we have to lie in sort of thing. So we have to evolve with it. And I do think that connecting the things that people are loyal to, again, things like they’re loyal to their career path, they’re loyal to their coworkers, they’re loyal to kind of good bosses and kind of good environments, and they’re loyal to their quality of life.

[JAMES]: Yes.

[COBY]: And what makes them loyalty to that is how much it sparks their motivation to provide, to accumulate, to be part of something, to be loyal to others, to achieve, to stay relevant, to make a difference, and to improve yourself. And that’s going to be where you can actually have some tangible tactical strategies that can really start to address issues around employee retention and employee attraction and really start to bring this new evolution of what employee loyalty actually means.

[JAMES]: Yeah. I think the last thing that I want to reiterate, is, sign up for our newsletter. if you’re interested in this topic at all, we’re going to provide that discount code to the course, as just a, hey, check it out. Hopefully you find something of value here. there will be tips, there’ll be, videos, there will be articles, that you can, review in that newsletter. the other piece is you can text us from in the show notes. There’s an option to contact, us. Now, I got to be clear, we don’t actually have the ability to text you back. The service doesn’t provide that. So if you want to reach out to us and you want to learn more and you use that feature, please just give us a way to contact you. That way we can actually get in touch with you and have a conversation of, is this something that would make a difference in your organization?

[COBY]: Yeah, absolutely. So just a very, very quick recap. I really wanted to reiterate that what makes people loyal or the idea of loyalty has shifted. So many people are working in what we call quicksand jobs, again, a job that they stepped into when they were looking for stability and became stuck in. And, I mean, we see this in everything from small businesses to corporate businesses to government employees. We see this a lot, actually, with government employees who are like, I can’t stand this job. But the pension I cannot walk away from.

[JAMES]: The benefits are great, the pension is great, the pay is, competitive, and I’ve got, enough vacation time that I can spend time with my family, so I’ll suck it up and just, it’s also why we end up seeing a lot of complacency in government?

[COBY]: Absolutely. Yes. That’s a whole other conversation. But this is kind of the reality that we all have to just accept. We can’t live in kind of the clouds that, you know, the, the things that were normal in the late eighties, early nineties is still kind of how things operate. And that, you know, people, you know, people need to be understood as what they are motivated by if you want to hold on to them. And this is something that is relevant from, again, government to corporate entities, even to, you know, like, you know, small businesses and nonprofits. This affects everybody, and there’s no business that wouldn’t benefit from rethinking loyalty, having a better understanding of what motivates employees and what gives them a sense of meaning and purpose. All right, great. So that about does it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit www.roman3.ca/podcast thanks for joining us.

[ANNOUNCER]: For more information on topics like these, don’t forget to visit us at www.roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, a version of the sound of James voice desire to find a better podcast…