It's bad enough that our employers expect us to show up for work five days a week. It's even worse that they actually expect us to work while we're at work, or, at least, stay awake from 9 to 5. But recently, it became clear to me that our managers want something more than reliability and productivity. They also want loyalty.
You heard me right -- to succeed today, you not only have to pretend to like your job and act like you respect your co-workers. You also may actually have to do it.
Or so I learned from "Why Loyalty Matters" by Timothy Keiningham and Lerzan Aksoy. According to the authors, who conducted a survey on the subject, a loyal employee is a happy employee. I suppose this makes a certain amount of crazy sense. There are sick individuals who enjoy being abused and debased. They're called the human resources department.
For everyone else, the loyalty impulse may be a little harder to trigger. Keiningham and Aksoy suggest that "only about 30 percent of us feel loyal to our employers, or feel that our employers have earned our loyalty." By their own calculation, that leaves 70 percent of us who are disloyal and unhappy. The figure seems low, but I'll take it.
If you have nothing better to do and want to improve your loyalty quotient, allow me to share some tips from the loyalty-meisters on five attributes of loyalty. And if you feel any loyalty at all to me, you'll put off turning to the comics and read every last one.
1. Support/assistance:
The authors ask, "Do you offer to help co-workers in the form of technical help, brainstorming, expertise and sharing contacts?"
In other words, are you a complete sucker? It's fine to offer co-workers the benefit of your superior technical expertise, like teaching fellow staff members the time-saving technique of making an instant breakfast by putting an Eggo waffle in their CD drive and pouring maple syrup on the keyboard. And certainly you can offer to share contacts, but keep it on a business level. It's OK to give away the contact information for your best customers, but you're the only one who should have the phone number of the boss's dominatrix.
2. Giving time/attention:
When dealing with coworkers, do you "show empathy, and demonstrate that you understand their issues, and really 'get' their point of view?" This isn't easy, since most of your fellow workers are foolish flibbertigibbets who have no issues worth getting, or even listening to. This is why you need to conduct all your workplace relationships on Twitter, so you can randomly tweet your co-workers, "R U upset abt ur big pay cut?" or "JSYK the boss is considering firing u." If that's not empathy, I don't know what is.
3. Recognition/encouragement:
"Instead of being withholding or competitive, show fellow employees that you're cheering them on." Great idea! Why be competitive when you can meekly stand around and let the boss fire your sorry butt. Cheering is a good idea, though, especially when you can do it loud enough for the entire office to hear. "Hey, let's have a big hand for Janet. She managed to get through an entire day without taking a nip from that bottle of Jagermeister she keeps in her top desk drawer."
4. Self-sacrifice/commitment
The authors want you to "stand up for a co-worker's unpopular viewpoint in a controversial workplace debate." Good idea! Tell everyone you totally respect Charlie's opinion that the boss is a doofus. Or just tell the boss. Follow through by helping Charlie pack his boxes and carry them to the parking lot. Now that's commitment.
5. Reliability/trust
The authors want you to demonstrate that "you are willing to be the go-to person when required." Personally, I'd rather be the "go-home person," but it wouldn't hurt to pretend that you're someone everyone can trust. That makes it even easier when it's time to stab your work friends in the back.
The authors have an online test that you can take to check your loyalty quotient, but I am suspicious of the results. I came out low in empathy, low in problem-focused coping and low in every possible loyalty category. Also, I don't "see problems through the eyes and hearts of others."
Completely ridiculous, right? Besides, how can you see problems through "the eyes and hearts of others," when you're super-perfect, and it's the others who cause all the problems?
