Loyalty in general can be thought of as a line of credit for employers and employees to informally "borrow" from each other to smooth things over. Explicitly enumerating all of a given job's duties in an employment agreement is functionally impossible, and a key part of what people mean by an employee's "loyalty" to a company is that willingness to go slightly outside of their expected duties. Meanwhile, a company's "loyalty" is willingness to tolerate downturns in returns on a given employee and protect employees' jobs even when doing so might cost them in the short term. A company's "loyalty" might take the form not punishing an employee for being unproductive for some time after a family tragedy or keeping employees on the payroll during an economic downturn even if that might cost them.

If you want to completely get rid of that, even the slightest imperfection in designing the bounds of a given employee's duties is going to result in whatever processes that person relies for grinding to a halt and everyone being trapped in a constant run-around of "That's not my job".

That said, given that companies have been increasingly unwilling to extend even the most basic loyalty to its employees, the right move for workers is to become more transactional. Normally, the accrued "credit" gained through loyalty might dissuade you from switching jobs even if you get a nominally better offer, but if that's no longer a factor, workers have no reason to hesitate about just looking at the bottom line on their employment agreement. This might be damaging to the broader economy since job hopping has considerable productivity costs, but on the individual level, it's the clear right choice.

That's a beautiful explanation of loyalty in this context. I've always struggled to define it. Thank you!

> What does it mean to be "loyal to" a company or employee, though?

I think there are different flavors of this but they generally fall into one of two categories:

1. Short-term vs. Long-term

  * Employee: I'm not getting a raise this year but I trust that they'll make it up to me.  This project sucks but they'll put me on a better one next time.
  * Employer: We don't need to keep this person on the payroll right now but we will in the future.

2. Past Behavior Predicts Future Behavior

  * Employee: The company cut me some slack when I was going through X, or kept me on even when the economy tanked, so I'll forgo a slightly higher salary at a place that might not happen, in case that situation happens again.
  * Employer: This person stuck it out when times were tough and didn't quit when we cut hours last quarter, so we're going to keep them around.

I'm not saying these are always this clean, or always the right decision, but I think they answer the "what does it mean" question in terms most people could identify with. You're probably going also going to see this more in companies that have a higher learning curve or where there is more personal attachment involved (e.g. small town/community where you're going to see them every day). If you're a Shiny Widgetmaker at the only company that makes Shiny Widgets, loyalty is probably worth it. If you work for a megacorp and were hired and fired by spreadsheet formulas, loyalty probably makes less rational sense for either side.

I agree. And it does not even have to be personal.

For example I know companies that have done a lot to help an employee with a critically ill spouse. I would feel some loyalty even if the company helped a colleague.

And there are some jobs where employees risk getting unpopular with customers, colleagues, the public, etc. They should take note of whether the company tend to support its employees or throw them under the bus, even if they did nothing wrong.

> If my services are a net disvalue to the company they should continue on as though that's not the case?

Loyalty is not about accepting a lower value relationship for the sake of not wanting to change, it is trying to optimize the value of relationships over a longer period of time. That means, among other things, ongoing investment from both parties to improve the mutual value of the relationship.

This applies to all forms of relationships, not just employment.

Yes, it's part of social capital. It is intangible, and hard to measure, but it definitely exists. Humans are not machines, and they will respond differently depending on how others treat them, even if those circumstances are not contractual.

I worked at the same company for six years. After that I job hopped. Now, 5 years lsrer, I still have 2-3 good friends I see regularly from the first company. I don't know a single person from any of the other companies.

When I worked for a regional water company, we were setup as a non-profit with a very old-school feel. Everything from dress codes and PTO to IBM mainframes.

“We’re like a family” was the motto and that was true, in the same way you have that dirt bag uncle and drama queen aunt that you invite to all the functions because they’re blood, we had the “he’s three years from retirement so we can’t get rid of them” relationships with tenured staff nearing their pension. We had a Network Analyst pulling around 90k a year that failed to train up over the years and fell behind to the point of uselessness. The entire job for this person was to “maintain our antivirus” which entailed installing and updating Macaffee, manually, on a few hundred machines. Maybe manning the help desk at lunch if they had to go out for calls here and there. No more, no less.

That, to me, is loyalty. It’s an awfully kind of loyalty in some sense but a beautiful kind at the same time.

Reads like a clear waste of taxpayer dollars, not beautiful to me in the slightest.

People take civil service jobs just because they'll get that kind of treatment: they're impossible to fire, and they'll get a pension just because they stayed around.

You could say that's inefficient and it is, but given what pathetically little the civil service can offer you, "job security" really needs to be part of it.

That does not need to be a part of it. Governments can choose to pay market rate for labor and not waste money in the long term.

.. and yet, almost none do. Maybe they see it differently from you?

They have the ability to punt today’s labor costs to future taxpayers via unaccounted debts in the form of underfunded defined benefit pensions and retiree healthcare.

So what they see is promise low taxes today, get votes today, let tomorrow’s taxpayers deal with debt problems. I cannot blame them, the voters give the leaders the wrong incentives.

Now you've got it.

Singapore does, which is why the government is so efficient and effective at almost everything it does.

Singapore has a land area equal to Lake Taupo in NZ.

What does that have to do with the competence of the civil service?

I agree. The only reason it’s “inhumane” to lay people off is because of our horrible safety net and ridiculous cost of education. If we could solve those issues, then we wouldn’t need any loyalty from companies. Imagine if we had that in place and instead of the job destruction by ChatGPT being a tragedy, it was an opportunity to update our economy, with hundreds of thousands of people trained in new industries. Not drowning in debt, but ready to work at innovative new places or start new companies themselves.

> I agree. The only reason it’s “inhumane” to lay people off is because of our horrible safety net and ridiculous cost of education.

It goes way beyond that point. Your tenure in a company requires you to specialize and develop your skills to meet the needs of your employer. When you are fired then the employability of those skills might be none or even detrimental to finding jobs anywhere else. The longest you work for an employer, the more potential you risk losing.

Also, you will leave an employer at a different stage in your life. Your ability to allocate your time and energy to onboard onto the requirements of another company can be severely limited due to factors like your family responsibilities or even your health and energy levels. Working for a company always requires you to waste potential that could be used.

Lastly, you will make life decisions around your work. For example, you might buy a home based on factors such as where your workplace is, your job requirements, and your salary range. If you're forced to switch jobs you might be forced to sell your home at a point in time that is detrimental to your interests.

For a company, an employee is expendable. For an employee, being fired can and often has a profound detrimental impact in their life, physically, mentally, emotionally, economically, and socially as well.

A job is not a mere business deal. A job is a social contract. An employer demands employees to make life changes around them, and employees are expected to comply. It's profoundly unfair and one-sided to make believe that an employee's social responsibilities only go as far as their paycheck.

I agree with you that it’s extremely unbalanced. However, i would say that a decent enough safety net would make most of that irrelevant. The problem is that our livelihood depend on the empathy of employers, when in reality empathy doesn’t enter into the equation.

In fact asking for employers to use empathy only makes the problem worse. Because then the ones who actually have it use it, then they are surpassed by those without it. So the world is even more slanted toward those without empathy. It also prolongs the problem by letting people ignore the problem because it’s not that bad yet.

Companies run on machine language. Legalistic policies and KPI’s are a form of machine language. There’s no empathy in that. It’s no easier to make a company act responsibly and ethically toward people than it is to make a computer do so.

If we were working for computers, we wouldn’t expect them to give us quality of life out of the kindness of their hearts, we’d define the inputs and outputs, policies etc, and create a context that manages their lack of empathy and prevents it from destroying everything

>our horrible safety net

This is intentional- an employee who feels secure is an expensive employee.

Mitch Mconnell debating $200/wk Covid relief funding: "my god, they won't work!"

Not to mention the fed raising rates any time pay starts to go up. Because of the “natural rate of unemployment” that is artificially enforced

Value requires context.

Loyalty means that while the company may be losing money for some transitional period of time, they are going to invest some time & treasure in their employees or transition them to a new role.

Usually when companies are cold to their folks, it’s a one sided arrangement. You’re expected to stay 30 minutes late routinely because you’re a “team player”, but you’ll be penalized immediately for starting 6 minutes late.

In general, there’s a broad line between being an asshole and a pushover. If you’re an asshole, you shouldn’t be surprised when people don’t like you. If you’re a pushover, you shouldn’t be surprised when people don’t respect you.

With tech companies, they deliberately setup a cushy work environment to attract staff. When stock market conditions started impacting the executive compensation, the terms changed in a bizarre way. Some layoffs are almost completely random, and people generally resent being sacrificed to the volcano gods.

Personally I think it means to act in the best interest of the other party, even when it’s not mandated. Treating others like you would want to be treated.

So for an employee: not charging bogus overtime, not being a stickler, helping those around you, helping the business succeed. Not bailing at the first sign of trouble.

For an employer: paying for overtime, being flexible with rules, proving assistance outside of work, helping the individual succeed. Not firing at the first sign of trouble.

Sadly the current bunch of CEOs appear to be simply numbers guys, rather than effective managers, and seem to think that the pinnacle of management is being the Hard (Wo)man who can slash the workforce at the drop of a hat, rather than being a thoughtful leader who understands the value of their workforce and how to direct them.

While I understand this is rare (and becoming rarer), part of my employment agreement includes incentives for staying with the company long-term. These incentives include a pension, increasing amounts of vacation time, training, and other smaller perks. These longer-term incentives demonstrate the company's commitment to a long-term employment agreement.

In exchange, I have more reason to stay and provide continuity, preserve domain knowledge, etc.

It's ok to have a cold or literal view of an employment agreement. In my opinion that's valid, and looking at your agreement through that lens gives you a lot of information about the intended term or duration of the agreement. Sadly, it's increasingly common for that duration to be "until the next re-org or downturn".

This.

The cold market-oriented view other HN'ers are espousing is certainly valid, but there are many, many small employers whose owners have a personal relationship with the employees.

It IS naïve to expect that from a very large company, though, where the managers' span on one job is a couple years, at most.