So What Breeds Corporate Loyalty?

What I have found recently talking to many of the clients I have is their loyalty to a company seems to fall into distinct categories, and none of these categories are related to money!! How’s that for a shocking statement?

Talking to my clients, several themes seem to emerge:

Professional Development:
Employees who are given the opportunity to learn more skills and increase their skills set are much more likely to stick around. It seems to be the most important reason clients have given for staying with an organisation.

Coaching and Feedback:
Even top performers need to know how well (or not) they are doing, what’s working and what needs improvement. Smart managers understand that every employee wants to feel their contributions are being appreciated, and once this fails to happen employees start heading for the door (even surprisingly in this economic climate)

Positive work environment:
As we spend nearly 70% of our lives at work, this really is a biggie!
Whether you are on a factory floor, or have the much coveted “corner office”, ones environment and co-workers influence a big chunk of job satisfaction. It seems that apart from the work flowing, a little fun every now and then; birthday celebrations and the like, do a lot to keep morale up.

Good bosses:
Ooooh, this is a really subjective issue. But the fact is people don’t really leave their work, they leave their bosses (well I know I have in the past!). You just have to consider what happens when a popular boss leaves an organisation, there usually follows a mini-exodus. Even people who are happy with their job resign to follow their leader (irrespective of the money on offer).

So to close both this post and the previous post (which are connected), if you take a job merely for the salary, I’m willing to bet your job satisfaction will be on the lower end of the scale, and your frustration will be off the chart. But if it’s a job you love, chances are the rewards will follow.

Career Myth No. 4-If you don’t like your job you are probably in the wrong career:

One way to tell if you are in the right career is whether or not you like your job. Now I know we ALL have bad days when we are stressed and we hate everybody and everything around us. I am not talking about those isolated days. I am talking about a constant feeling of dissatisfaction. This feeling is usually a sign that you need to re-examine your whole career choice. This is something I frequently hear from coaching clients who have decided to work with me. They know something isn’t right because they don’t like their jobs. In fact they usually hate their jobs. Their natural assumption is that their unhappiness is a consequence of a larger underlying issue...........their choice of career.

This is a clear case of false logic. Not liking your job might be telling you you’re in the wrong job. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are in the wrong career. Let's not forget they are two different things. You could just be working for the wrong person or the wrong company. It really takes a skillful approach to discern the source of your discontent, and it usually is very hard to do without the help of someone independent (sorry for the shameless plug for all Career Coaches)