$200 GIFT FOR 10 YEARS OF LOYALTY
Why job-hopping is a way of life among the young today
Friday • March 7, 2008
"YOUNG people these days have no staying power," my boss lamented recently. "Job-hopping is a way of life; no one cares about loyalty anymore."
I can understand his frustration. As a former manager, I had found it aggravating to have to keep interviewing candidates for the same post — one year, there were three people doing that job. So much time and effort was spent training them, and just when they're finally up to speed, they up and leave.
Long gone are long-service awards. These days, bosses should just give those long-service watches to anyone who stays more than three years.
But as an employee, I am more sympathetic with the job-hopper. That's because I've worked during the days of the Asian financial crisis and Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and seen how fickle Singaporean employers could be and how little they treasured loyalty.
During the Asian financial crisis, I had my pay docked by 20 per cent. The company vowed to reinstate the pay-cut when the economy recovered but of course, when the day came, the bosses conveniently "forgot". It took five long years of service increments to get my salary up to pre-crisis levels.
I was ready to quit but my dad, who had worked in the same company for 30 years, advised against it. "Loyalty will pay off," he said, with the confidence of someone whose company paid for his family's healthcare, sent him on overseas reward trips and gave his children scholarships.
So, I hung tight and eventually reached the 10-year mark. When I finally got the long-service award, I phoned my husband: "Guess what, I got a $200 voucher."
"Don't get angry, ya," he responded, "but my colleague just got a $2,500 voucher for working for five years."
Now tell me I owe a firm like that my loyalty. Why should I when it didn't seem to value me — or, as my husband pointed out, appraised me at a rate of $20 a year? It would take another 10 years before I could attain that promised watch — a cheap brand, of course, as an engraved Rolex would eat into the company's profits.
An article for Harvard Business School's magazine notes: "The relationship between employers and employees has undergone a fundamental shift. Today, workers not only don't expect to work for decades on end for the same company, but they don't want to. They are largely disillusioned with the very idea of loyalty to organisations."
It's easy to see why, especially when, at my age, you start hearing stories of old friends being treated as if they're well past their use-by date at 40.
A former colleague, an office manager, received three bad appraisals in a row. She was not "innovative" enough, the bosses said. After 25 years in the company, she was "stagnating". The poor woman was a victim of her own success. She had spent those years perfecting the office system; ask her any logistic question and she could answer it. Yet, they wanted her to come up with radical ideas from year to year.
What they didn't understand was that her contribution to the company was non-quantifiable: She gave the otherwise sterile office a heart. She was the "office mummy", the familiar face everyone ran to with his or her troubles. When she left, the place started falling apart, with almost half the office leaving.
My cousin, Nancy, has been in the same company for 20 years. Yesterday, I found out she's worried she may lose her job.
At a meeting she wasn't invited to, her boss had said: "What shall we do with Nancy? She's been here so long she's practically a dinosaur." Basically, he was looking to hire someone junior who could do her work for half the pay.
But that's the problem. Everybody is always looking for new blood for lower pay or new ways to reinvent the wheel.
Think about it: Who ever hires a candidate who, when asked at the interview: "What would you change if you got the job?", answers: "Nothing".
So, if bosses don't look after their employees anymore, what's wrong with employees looking after No 1? Being professional, I will give my employers what they pay for — my work and expertise but not my heart.
And if I ever need a watch, this dinosaur will just buy one herself.
Tabitha Wang's loyalty is now to her husband and cat — and possibly thrift shops.