Your Competitors Will Take Care Of Your Employees If You Don’t

When a new employee starts, we as managers already have their loyalty for hiring them, for giving them a chance. New starters come with enthusiasm, energy and readiness to move mountains. That loyalty and enthusiasm can fizzle out quickly, We lose loyalty if we do not understand what it is Loyalty is “about showing up, being on time, being reliable, doing what you say you’re going to do, being trustworthy, putting in a fair day’s work, respecting the work, respecting the customer, respecting the organization, respecting co-workers, not wasting time, not making work hard for other people, not creating unnecessary work for other people, not being a bottleneck, not faking work.” Jason Fried, CEO of Base-camp It is about telling us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear. They disagree privately. They support our decisions publicly. We lose loyalty if we ask employees for something that they do NOT owe us: Their health, their integrity, their sanity, their peace of mind, and their family: like asking them skip recitals and teachers conferences. We lose loyalty if we hold them back from advancement. We lose loyalty if we run for cover when they need us most. We lose loyalty if we promote wrong people. We lose loyalty if we do not let them pursue their passion. We lose loyalty if we do not find time to help them despite our own problems. Strong people stand up for themselves. Strong leaders stand up for others.