Loyalty Isn't Dead, We're Just Not Loyal to Jobs Anymore

There have been a lot of articles, and countless Reddit threads, recently about why employees are no longer loyal to their companies anymore. And everything they say is true. Companies aren't loyal to their employees. Layoffs are a regular part of the culture now. The days of working your entire career at one company are gone. But while loyalty to companies or jobs is definitely gone, I'd argue that loyalty to people still exists, and I'd argue that was always a much better place to put your loyalty anyway.

Why Company Loyalty Died

There is a quote attributed to author Ziad K Abdelnour that says "Trust is earned, respect is given, and loyalty is demonstrated. Betrayal of any one of those is to lose all three." And I can see how employees are expected to demonstrate loyalty to their employers, but this quote shows that this is only true if the employer is shown to respect the employee and the employee can trust the company to be fair in dealing with them. I think that many would argue that over the last few decades, that trust has been abused, and any evidence that the employer respects the employee has also been lacking. So by Ziad's thought process, loyalty rightfully should no longer be given.

In the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people went to work for a factory, and in many cases, they got everything they needed from the factory. They might have even lived in company towns, shopped in company stores, been treated in company hospitals, etc. so everything from their paycheck to the very roof over their head came from the company. This level of dependency meant that if you didn't keep your job, you could end up without a home.

While it is hard to say that this level of forced dependency showed that the company respected you, it is very possible that the people running those companies took that responsibility to their employees more seriously as a result of the consequences, and employees could trust that the company would try to take care of them. Back in those days, you also had pension plans where the company paid you even after you left, and often that pension was connected to years of service, so loyalty was heavily rewarded. Staying in one place meant stability in income, housing, lifestyle, etc., and if you were loyal, the company took care of you for the rest of your life. Some could argue that company towns and other such labor policies were extremely exploitive, but the structure did offer stability in exchange for loyalty, and many people made that deal.

Now, a lot of those structures are gone. Housing costs are almost never paid, or even subsidized, by your employer, and they have gone up dramatically over time. Pensions are all but gone. 401Ks, if you have them, are transferrable, so there is no tie to keep you with that employer. Many employers are getting more frugal around other benefits as well, such as healthcare, childcare, vacation time, etc. They are extracting more and more value, and offering less and less.

Additionally, over the last 50 years especially, the disparity between pay at the top and the bottom has also diverged rapidly, so many at the bottom can't help but feel like the people at the top don't care as much. And when layoffs come, the people at the top rarely suffer, and are often rewarded. These are not the actions of a company that respects you and that is worthy of your trust. So, loyalty suffers.

Personal Loyalty Not Only Survives, But Thrives

At the same time as companies have spent decades moving away from the kinds of interactions that promoted loyalty to the company, that isn't to say that the people within those companies aren't still working side-by-side and developing bonds of trust, respect, and loyalty with each other. I have built lasting, lifelong relationships with peers, former managers, and former employees. I am incredibly loyal to them, and they are incredibly loyal to me. That forms the core of my professional network. And I have already talked about the transformative power of that network, and why I built Prohana to help others to nurture their own network.

The three-legged stool that Ziad describes, of trust, respect, and loyalty are all the parts of a strong, durable, and rewarding relationship. And that transcends a job or a company or a role. Now that people change jobs much more frequently, as often as every 1-2 years in the software industry in Silicon Valley, for example, you don't develop any sense of real loyalty to the company. But throughout your career, you may find yourself crossing paths with the same people at multiple companies over long periods of time. That is why it is important to treat everyone with respect, and to act in a way that earns the respect of others. It is critical to be trustworthy, because the reputation of being so will follow you wherever you go. But if you do these things, then you can expect that you will engender loyalty in those around you. And if you seek these traits out in others, you will find people worth being loyal to.

I think that the idea that people aren't loyal anymore is misleading, and feel like my relationships with past colleagues are no less deep and meaningful than those experienced by factory workers in the company towns of old. We spend so much of our day at work, that if you exclude time sleeping, you probably spend more time with colleagues than family, at least during the week. This is evolving now that we have moved in many industries away from in-office work due to Covid, but even meeting constantly over Zoom builds those relationships. And the personal currency of loyalty is just as valuable now as it has ever been.

As I have spent the last 25+ years in Silicon Valley, I have also seen loyalty show its importance in the startup scene here. I know of several examples of serial entrepreneurs who hire the same starting team over and over again to help them get a new venture off the ground.

Cisco famously has Mario, Luca, Prem, and Soni (referred to as "MPLS") who founded several companies later acquired by Cisco, often with a small subset of the same core team. The PayPal Mafia, the Palantir Mafia, and others, are all examples of extremely loyal groups of people whose relationships have brought them tremendous success. Those people may not be loyal to their company, and they are happy to leave at a moment's notice to chase something new, but they will often do it with the same group of people that they respect and trust, and that they are extremely loyal to.

Conclusion

Loyalty isn't dead. Far from it. But it now takes the form of being loyal to the group of people that they have a strong sense of trust in and respect for. Just like soldiers who fought together, colleagues who built something important will often remain loyal to each other. And the results are arguably way more powerful than anything they would have gotten being loyal to a company that would lay them off next week if their shareholders would give the stock a $2 bump for doing so.