Over the weekend I had the opportunity to talk to a group of really interesting people. One was a retired gentleman, who wanted to put a solar hot water system in his house; one was a senior executive in a Utilities company; and the other was a young gun with a well know sports company.
What got my attention was the Utilities gent talking about "voluntary redundancy" - which he was seeking from his company.
And the whole concept of "loyalty" flashed through my mind, prompting me to think about why people today in the workforce seem to lack the same ideas that I was brought up on.
In cyberspace, where you can click around anonymously, on and off sites at will, go where you please in the virtual world, what creates loyalty?
In business where companies are going broke and defaulting on staff payments, why would you be loyal?
Many years ago, people planned a career in a company, or maybe sometimes within an industry.
Now it seems people plan a career within their own minds, using companies and industries as the stepping stones to their success.
One international airline publicly stated over the weekend that from now on their would only have two types of staff - project managers, and content providers. You wither managed a specific activity or you did the work for the person that did.
Will this generate loyalty? Pride in their work? Create a sense of contribution and self-worth?
Maybe, maybe not.
The web age seems to have created an environment where the "people product" is demeaned by the distance from the computer screen real work takes place.
Who wants to be loyal to a computer?
The best work - be it thinking, analyzing, creating, or communicating is still done by people, not machines.
Loyalty used to be the glue that made a working environment more productive, generating pride in what you did.
Perhaps finding the light requires us to look back at what made us great in the first place, and do more of it?
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