Friday Rant: Re-thinking Company Loyalty -- and vice-versa
We're bombarded everyday with news about massive layoffs and increasing un-employment. Some take the schadenfreude position of "thank God it wasn't me" and feel a certain pleasure in having avoided the axe. Others, hopefully, perpetually assess their value to the company they work for, think and act proactively and constantly look for new and better ways to hedge the economic climate.
The personal trauma of this climate hit home for me last week upon hearing that just such a person as the latter -- an old friend who went to work for a national paper merchant straight from college -- was laid off after 33 years of extremely loyal performance. Ed (not his real name) was a middle management poster boy for this merchant house. He always rolled with the punches. As regional purchasing director, inventory manager, inventory analyst and IT wonk, Ed mentored well over half of the staff that remains on board. This man was the most up-beat, committed and can-do person I've ever met. He was unceremoniously dismissed without notice and a meager severance package. Ed's position was not eliminated, he was replaced by a young grad at half his salary.
Like many 50 something's in the work force, Ed's pension was virtually trashed a few years back when the merchant house was taken over by an international consulting firm, and his 401K lost 50% of its value in the past year. Now we can say that perhaps he shouldn't have stayed so long. But his dilemma is a raw example of an impending problem that we all need to think long and hard about.
It has been forecast that Ed's generation, the 50's baby boomers, will need to work well past the age of 65 in order to afford a minimally comfortable retirement. It's also safe to say that this will hold true for everyone else in the U.S. workforce. In our current economic climate and the changing paradigm it will inevitably engender, what are we going to do with an increasingly aging middle management workforce that can be displaced at half their accumulated salaries and for whom replacement positions are becoming increasingly scarce? Not to mention how we will sustain and nurture commitment, creativity -- and yes, loyalty -- throughout the employment life cycle.
- William Busch, Spend Matters Columnist
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The resultant tree has foliage and roots, but the trunk itself is rotten, and can't withstand any pressure.
It's therefore not surprising to see many companies who have created mid-level rot turning to outside consultancies to help them remember how to perform the job functions they've eliminated. There are lots of folks like "Ed" who have landed very nice consulting gigs, stepping in at 2x to 3x their previous salary to do exactly the same job they once did -- with plenty of time left over for walks on the beach (as the phone rings desperately).
It's really many issues. Eric brings up the complex knowledge set that seasoned employees have. There are many of our generation who have not kept their skills sharp, who rely on their wiles and growing experience to make it through the workweek. But I beileve that there are also many of us who have bought into the continuous improvement philosophy and are current AND seasoned. Unfortunately, sometimes it's more a tradeoff of the best person at XXXX dollars vs someone who is clearly not the perfect person, but is viewed as "good enough" and will do the job for XX dollars.
With that said, the casual termination of knowledge workers for lower cost versions seems to be done by firms that commoditize human assets. Those actions are signaled within an org by top execs who lack leadership and an ethical responsibility beyond the bottom line.
Unfortunately, that's the way of our species. There's a small population who will do anything to acquire power - and who disregard responsibilities (or present a false face) to others in their org.
And Ed ended up in a bad situation at a time when the traditional employer/employee understanding had been gone for a long time. He's been in a legacy relationship with his company, that's just now been modernized. Painful.
As a 40+ something I appreciate the problem. I can't say that I ever worked in the same place for 33 years though. Or even 6 years. That's just not the way the country is designed anymore. I wish it was.
But more curiously...did you just say that a consulting firm bought a paper manufacturing company? That doesn't even sound within the realm of possibility. Did I read that wrong?
Bain
Thanks for asking.
One big plus about the older generation is that they respect a job for an honest days' work. I'm more concerend for the spolied 30-40-somethings used to being overpaid for doing an average job, and haven't been trained in anything of significant value for years. Do they have the mentality to do "real" jobs that don't pay that well, but require a good attitude?
But, today there is a solution for the American Worker to strongly consider as an alternative to this inevitable employment acceptable practice - entrepreneurship! Anyone who wants to do a job vs. just have a job needs to investigate the career path of being a entrepreneur.
There are alternatives for individuals who can find a work life passion and create a business that will offer that employment life cycle without the fear of having that ax come down on them after years of giving a company their committed loyalty.
Organizations like Club eFactory, www.clubefactory.net, are a life-line for those individuals who have come to the point in their career that they can find an alternative to being another corporation statistic - and especially before they are featured in a news article.
BTW, this article hit home - I was a forced into entrepreneurship in the same way as Ed and now I just look back and wished I made a move before that day the "pink slip" showed up and I actually acted surprised. Like so many others in this same position, I was in denial up to that point it could ever have been me to be let go - when I down deep in my gut knew the almighty bottom-line $ meant more than my experience and loyalty!