The Work Wire
Loyalty - The Work Wire
In the latest episode of Work Wire, Bob Goodwin of Career Club and Johnny Taylor Jr. from SHRM go deep into the evolving landscape of workplace loyalty, sparked by a recent Business Insider article by Aki Ito on its perceived decline. The discussion explores the historical shift from a "company man" mentality to today's more transactional employee-employer relationships influenced by globalization and technological advancements. Johnny emphasizes the dual role of employers and employees in the erosion of trust.
The conversation also addresses the impacts of technology on the labor market, noting that it not only broadens opportunities for employees but also for employers to seek cheaper labor globally.
Bob and Johnny discuss the changing nature of employment contracts, influenced by shifts towards knowledge-based work and the fading relevance of traditional job security measures like pensions.
Highlighting the complexity of modern employment dynamics, they argue that loyalty must be mutual and conditional, challenging the traditional notion of unwavering company loyalty. This episode promises deep insights into the strategic and human elements shaping today's workplaces, urging HR professionals and employees to reconsider the meaning of loyalty in a rapidly changing work environment.
In the latest episode of Work Wire, Bob Goodwin of Career Club and Johnny Taylor Jr. from SHRM go deep into the evolving landscape of workplace loyalty, sparked by a recent Business Insider article by Aki Ito on its perceived decline. The discussion explores the historical shift from a "company man" mentality to today's more transactional employee-employer relationships influenced by globalization and technological advancements. Johnny emphasizes the dual role of employers and employees in the erosion of trust.
The conversation also addresses the impacts of technology on the labor market, noting that it not only broadens opportunities for employees but also for employers to seek cheaper labor globally.
Bob and Johnny discuss the changing nature of employment contracts, influenced by shifts towards knowledge-based work and the fading relevance of traditional job security measures like pensions.
Highlighting the complexity of modern employment dynamics, they argue that loyalty must be mutual and conditional, challenging the traditional notion of unwavering company loyalty. This episode promises deep insights into the strategic and human elements shaping today's workplaces, urging HR professionals and employees to reconsider the meaning of loyalty in a rapidly changing work environment.
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Bob Goodwin:Hello everybody, this is Bob Goodwin with Career Club. Welcome to another episode of the Work Wire, where I'm joined by my good friend and co-host, the CEO and president of SHRM, Johnny C, Taylor, Jr. Johnny, how are you?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I'm doing well today. Well, honest, I got a little crook neck and crook in my neck, but everything is wonderful your age. That stuff is going to happen, okay oh gosh, I feel an ageism topic coming up, but we'll talk about that.
Bob Goodwin:well, we'll find out. So so today's topic is on loyalty. We're recording this towards the end of February and recently there was an article in Business Insider by one of their chief correspondents, aki Ito the perception of the disappearance or the decrease in loyalty that is being felt between employees and employers. I'm just going to kind of go through a couple of highlights to get you and our audience grounded in some of the key aspects of the article, and then we'll pick the thread up from there. So, as Aki writes, you know the article discusses the changing relationship between employers and employees, emphasizing the decline of traditional workplace loyalty amidst phenomena like quiet quitting and job hopping.
Bob Goodwin:From a historical context, you know it used to be that companies shared their prosperity with their employers through benefits, job security. You know all that kind of company man mentality that helped forge this psychological contract that you know this is employment for life and that if you've got me, I've got you kind of mentality. I can't believe I'm going to say this to a lawyer, but where the contract principles of mutuality and reciprocity applied and we can unpack those in a minute.
Speaker 1:So what happened?
Bob Goodwin:You know what the what the writer says is things like globalization and just changes in business practices have led to more transactional relationships. So we can think about whether it's private equity firms leaning on the company or they're public companies and stock market is pressuring them, but just the traditional contract has become kind of unwound. So what are some companies? Well, we'll get into what some companies are doing in a minute, but I just want to start at the start with you, johnny. Do you even agree with the basic premise that there's a decline in loyalty between employees and employers?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Yes, I don't think there's much of a debate about that. Where I might differ, when we get to that fork in the road with Aki is the cause of it. Much of the narrative is around what companies have done to violate that trust and to affect loyalty and there's not enough of a conversation, I'd suggest, to you, around what employees the employee population has done, around what employees the employee population has done. Let's go all the way back to and I'm old enough now to talk about it, since you talked about my age is Y2K. Do you remember when we all thought the world was going to end on midnight? 1201, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:In the year 2000. And for those of you too young enough to know, literally 23 or so years ago, there was this real fear that when we hit calendar year 2000,. All of our systems would go sideways and the world as we knew it would come to an end that it wasn't a Y2K.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I remembered being in HR at Blockbuster at the time and we had, you know, we were in the early stages of technology and the embracing of technology, but we had a great group of technologists. Unfortunately, as we got closer 1998, 1999, we saw technologists come in and say I can go across the street for a 30% increase. I want a signing bonus. If you don't give it to me, I'm out. If you don't do this, you don't do that, I'm leaving you at your most vulnerable point.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Remember, at this point companies were afraid of what was going to happen at 1201 come the year 2000. We were literally being held hostage and I remember the CEO then of the company Blockbuster saying to me OK, we have to do what we have to do, but I assure you, if the world continues to exist in a way that we hope it does in 2000, we're going to pull all of this back, we're going to lay these people off, we're going to cut these salaries, we're going to there, we're going to return the favor. So I don't know that it started in 2000. I can tell you, in my professional career, mid-1990s, when I was early, early on in my career, even I began to question loyalty, and it wasn't the company's loyalty to the employee. It was the employees who realized they now had leverage and they used it against us, and thus, at least in my the last 30 years, I've seen it tear further and further apart. The question is what started that?
Bob Goodwin:So so let's unpack that a little bit. That's very unfortunate, kind of that blackmailing or extortion or whatever the right term is for those programmers. That's not cool. What strikes me is and I'm older than you, so there's ageism. But going back even further, so if I was like in Detroit and I'm you know company man working at Ford or General Motors or wherever you know, one is that was a labor oriented job, right, and so there's only so many places to take my back and my hands to go do the work. Secondly, you're in a pre-internet, pre-technology world. Information transparency, you know, was not high, so I didn't even know what was available to me because there wasn't much. There was more opacity than transparency with what's available.
Bob Goodwin:And then and then, as you know, the the, just the nature of work has shifted to be more knowledge oriented and less sweat oriented, then you know, technology enables. Then technology enables me to work from somewhere else and I don't have to be, and so it just creates a lot more fluidity in what my opportunities are. So I think a lot of these things have sort of moved in favor of the talent pool to just have more choices.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Well, but let's continue. And technology has given us, from the employer perspective, more choices, the globalization that Aki refers to. At one time, the big three produced what 80, 90% of the cars in America. Well, now foreign cars can enter the US market, so we can get that car, made more cheaply in another part of the world, imported into the United States and therefore you don't have a lock. The big three don't have a lock on the monopoly of acquiring cars and therefore labor costs are at odds with the fact that your counterpart will build that same car with employees who work for $10 an hour in another part of the world. Your folks want $40 an hour. So I mean, it's just we got to realize all of those things that you described. Technology also gives us, as employers, more choice. It's not just the employee, it gives us more choice.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I was talking to someone as you know, because we covered this on the work wire in a couple of episodes ago people who, during the height of the pandemic, who said I don't want to work in the office, I can work from anywhere. And what did we say to them? That's a really good point, which means I can hire someone anywhere. You know, this cuts both ways. So, yes, employee, you have that argument. And I say, hey, and I've got the argument that you're absolutely right. So you, right now, are sitting in Manhattan as a technologist, charging you know, costing me $100,000 a year, and I can hire that same person in India because, after all, you've told me you could be in India for what it's worth, for 40 grand. These, all of these arguments, that's where it has led. That's really. My opening point was both sides have realized that they have options when it comes to labor. Right.
Bob Goodwin:Which, which is employment at will. I mean, that really does become kind of a bedrock of a lot of these conversations and, as you say, that cuts both ways. I don't want to get too stuck in this, because I'd like to keep the conversation going, but to what extent do you think just the weight of pensions, you know, has contributed to this?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:um, listen, very few companies and employers generally, the government, and even the government has modified its pension offering. Have those anyway, I think-.
Bob Goodwin:No, but back in the day.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Back in the day. Listen, it was, as rightly, the article referred to and, as you know, there was this social contract. I worked for you for 30 years. You have some obligation to ensure that I enjoy the rest of my life post-work at least I'm able to eat and provide for myself and medical care, et cetera. It's the whole concept of Medicare and the like, right. That's the trade-off Once employees got really comfortable moving around and changing jobs.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Instead of two jobs in your career, you have 20, what is the point of a pension? You're not going to be there long enough to invest in it anyway. So the pension with the way of the past, we went to more portable options like 401k plans and companies are contributing. Now they're not contributing and guaranteeing the way they used to do traditional plans. But I don't think that's it. I think it gets to the issue of pensions going away were, yes, partly in response to companies needing to have more budget certainty. You know interest rates go up, interest rates go down. That affects pension liability, et cetera. But the other part of it is employees were saying to us I'm not going to be with you 30 years from now. Hell, I'm not going to be with you five years from now. So I don't need a pension, I need something else, and thus was born 401ks and now other versions of that. So I don't know. It's not a big pension issue anymore. That's the thing.
Bob Goodwin:No, not anymore. I just think that that is one of the catalysts. It's like people are living longer. I didn't budget for this amount of liability for this period of time. Someone's got to give. How do we push this back on to the employee and let her be responsible? We'll help, but not to the extent, certainly not guaranteeing, like the old school plans used to do Listen.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:This is a whole nother topic that I hope you will pull back up, because I think you've touched something that is really a big conversation. We also did not factor the exponential growth in labor costs, and I was just looking at this the other day and I'm using rough numbers, but they're really close. The minimum wage in 2012 in retail, in practice, was about seven eight bucks an hour. You know that's what people got as the norm, and the federal minimum wage was seven bucks or so an hour and people made a little bit more, but that was the retail minimum wage. You're 17, 18. You work in the malls on weekends after hours. That's what you get.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Fast forward, that number is now $19 an hour in just a decade and a year. So 13 years, 11 years. In 11 years, it has nearly tripled the cost of labor. Something has to give, and so employers are trying to sort through all of this and continue to protect the bottom line, because if the company loses money, guess what? It doesn't exist, and we saw, as you know, when it came to pension payments back in the day, the first thing that goes away when a company files for bankruptcy is all of that pension liability. So back to your pension point. So this is all. Labor costs have exponentially grown. Hell, they've grown big time since COVID alone, and companies are just trying to keep up.
Bob Goodwin:Well, yes and okay, because we're talking, you know, it wasn't but three years ago. In some case, maybe even two years ago, the companies were, you know, bidding and basically talent hoarding right. And so it's like I'm meta and I want the very best people and I want as many of the very best people, so I'm just going to go buy talent and just have it. So you don't have it. Alphabet that happened, which is sort of what preceded the big tech layoffs.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Well hands down, but that's 30 companies, Okay. So I think sometimes the headline is meta and alphabet and blah, blah, blah. The vast majority of companies in America, overwhelmingly, are small and medium-sized companies and they didn't have the opportunity to hoard talent. They were still operating on thin margins and they did not have hordes and hordes of people and layers of it. In fact, those small and medium-sized companies were negatively impacted by that very behavior because they had to now fight for talent. No, that's my point.
Bob Goodwin:That's why I'm saying there is a ripple effect to this.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:There's a huge ripple effect, but Apple and Google and Meta and all the companies that were doing it were only responding to the demands of the employee. The employee said if you want me to work here, you got to pay me a million dollars.
Bob Goodwin:You have supply and demand, though, right, I mean, that's the nature of a capitalistic market.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Until and I love this until we said some of that supply I can hire in India. Article in the Wall Street Journal. A couple of weeks ago guy was making $160,000 a year in Silicon Valley as an engineer. When they laid those people off and are continuing to lay them off he had to go back to India because he was here on a visa only a work visa and he's working now for about $40,000 a year. That same guy, with the same set of credentials, doing the same amount of work, just took a 70, 80% pay cut. So this thing cuts both ways.
Bob Goodwin:That's where I was getting to go, johnny is that? Hey, I don't have the demand, therefore I don't need the supply, so it's sort of the other side of the coin. That doesn't feel quite as good.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Well, let me say this before you go, because this is really important. We use a lot of sports jargon. You and I do, and we do this a lot. We understand that the marquee player gets X and can demand certain perks and treatments and everything else. The person sitting on the bench makes X, minus something right. And you leverage when you are Lebron james or steph curry or whatever, and maybe you can negotiate. But when you are no longer as good as you used to be, what happens? The team trades you or they cut you. Yeah, it's just. I mean, that's the nature of it. You leverage when you have to leverage the organization. No, no one would suggest that. Oh my gosh, the company is horrible because you know, play it. The player is now 40 and can't shoot and run up and down the court as quickly as he did when he was 20. It's just, we paid you when you were at the top of your game and you leveraged us and made us pay you an obscene amount of money, and now we're done with you.
Bob Goodwin:OK, so this is kind of where I was hoping we would go.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I know.
Bob Goodwin:I'm probably going to misuse this word, but kind of existentially, is loyalty even a concept worth debating?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:That is the question that I've actually toyed with. I think there's value in it, as long as we understand the limitations of it. Someone said the other day they don't use the phrase work, family because you don't divorce, you don't just walk away.
Bob Goodwin:I was going to go there later, so I'm glad.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Right, you don't come in and say, hey mom, you were a great mom when I was a dependent, but now I don't need you so much, so you're out. You know what I mean. But in corporate America, we do hey mom, your skills are not as useful to me anymore. So I think it's loyalty while I'm here, and employees have said that I'm loyal while I'm here, but I've not promised you that I'm going to be here five years from now. Employees have said that to us and a lot during the great resignation. Let's talk about it.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:So I went all the way back to 1999, but we don't have to go that far. We can go 2018, all the way post COVID, to 2021, when employees were just walking in and saying I can get more to go across the street. I know you've been great. I know you just paid for my MBA, which positioned me to get the job across the street. I know that I've had a great people manage. You've promoted me twice. I know you've done everything. But guess what? You too would have to go if someone gave you a $30,000 or $40,000 raise. That's what they've said to us, and so I push back and often say so where is the loyalty? Or to your fundamental question, which I think is the right one, is do I need to be loyal to you? Do you need to be loyal to me? Maybe we engage in this transaction and I get what I can get out of you while I'm here, you get what you can get out of me and then, when it's done, it's done.
Bob Goodwin:Okay. So where I would go in this one is I think that that is playing a very short game on both sides, because I don't know if you're familiar with a book called Workquake Steve Cadigan wrote it, he was LinkedIn's first CHRO and a very important point that he makes is that we should care about people for their whole career. For a few reasons, boomerang employees, right. So people leave, they come back, right, they're going to. Another point would be they're part of our ecosystem. They may go be a customer of mine, a supplier of mine, a partner of mine. So we want to maintain good relationships with people, even when they're not in our employ.
Bob Goodwin:From a talent perspective, there's also the you know, hey, I haven't worked there anymore, but I still really like that company. Johnny, you should apply there. You'd be a great fit at company x. So that playing a bit of a longer game, as dory clark would would say, is actually the smart game to play. So, yeah, if you want to view a transaction like that, that's okay, but if you can take a bigger view on both sides, Both sides.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:That's the issue, bob, is. I agree violently with you and I try to do that every day at SHRM and in every organization that I've worked in, even when I wasn't CEO, I was trying to convince my CEO. But it's increasingly a hard argument that you want loyalty from me but you're not willing to give me loyalty. The CEOs see it, the hiring managers see it, and so I come in as the HR person saying we've got to take care of our people, we've got to reskill them. Oh, and I paid for their MBA and the person, the day or the week that they graduated, they went across the street. That's what we call loyalty. So there's this.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Increasingly, corporate America is saying there needs to be some reciprocity in this game. You want me to be loyal to you through the good and the bad. You've got to be loyal to me, and that is what I would say to the writer of the article is that we've got to be honest, that both sides employers and employees if you want to get back. It's like a marriage, like if you want me to be loyal to you, wife, then you had sure as heck better be loyal to me as your husband and you can't go out and cheat on me and expect me to sort of sit here and be here for you, like it doesn't work that way. We've got to get back to so mutuality of loyalty, and if we could get there, good.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Unfortunately, I don't think that's real. I think that is la la land, because employees move and they've told us they're going to move, they're willing to move. So there you have it. Why would I build a pension plan for a workforce where overwhelmingly 80 percent of them tell me I don't plan to be here 10 years from now? Well, why would I? Why would I invest in a pension plan for you then?
Bob Goodwin:Right, so so you hit on a couple of things and it gets back to the contract language, which is this mutuality, reciprocity, and then I think all of that kind of leads ultimately to trust. Side of the equation is that they actually would hope for more longevity sometimes in these roles if they're actually not looking to be free agents all the time and look, does money talk? Yes, but one of the big lessons that I think you know a lot of people took from the pandemic was compensation. Isn't everything Like work-life integration, like I need the ability to go take care of my mom, right, and I deal with the health issue that you know. You guys provide some flexibility for and understanding the work's just more interesting here than across the street. You guys actually have a purpose that I can get aligned with. Why do people quit jobs? What's the number one reason? My boss, my boss wasn't great.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Go ahead what? And number two is money. They go back and back.
Bob Goodwin:But the fact that I just want to make the case that there's so many other aspects that play on, like why there's loyalty. We've talked about this before and I don't think I'm sharing anything out of school. But you know, some of the people at Career Club, you know, need flexibility for different reasons and I am very happy to provide that to them because they are excellent colleagues. They produce at a very high level that if I thought about replacing them it makes my tummy hurt. I don't want to think about it. So there's that mutuality and I get a phone call from somebody who's probably not making as much money she could somewhere else, but the whole package fits her life much better and therefore that becomes a healthy relationship that we've got and it isn't just sort of a bidding war that I'm holding with her talent and you are, first of all, a great people manager.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I know this. Even people who've left there don't say negative things about you. That being said, not to me at least, because they know I'd take it out on them. But I defend my brother. But no, that being said, I wished the world operated that way and I think if you were polling and we do poll managers we see people who've done everything right by will leave us if they're getting more money, and it depends upon how much money Will they leave? For 5%, 10%, no, 30%, 40%, yes, and you almost can't blame them. But you can blame them Because the point is, if you want loyalty, it has to be reciprocated.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I'd love to say to my spouse that just because a younger, richer, more handsome man walks in the door, that you don't leave me, and if that's okay more handsome man walks in the door, that you don't leave me, and if that's okay, then you can't scream bloody murder when I find a younger, more beautiful, richer woman and I walk out on you and our three kids, right? This idea that you can have it both ways is the problem, and that's what I wish we would talk more about is be honest with yourself. How many times have you walked out on an employer who every day wasn't perfect? And there's no such thing as a perfect relationship, marriages, friendships, nothing that you just left because you A I just wanted to change or B I didn't like. There's people leave us for a lot of reasons and so employees have said let's do away with the fairy tale. You want loyalty from me because I can't count on loyalty from you.
Bob Goodwin:Right, and so I think that you know again. Can you get all the way to nirvana? Probably not, but I do believe that it is a massive competitive edge for companies that, to the greatest extent possible, can demonstrate genuine care for the people in their employ. Because for the companies that are more I don't mean this quite as pejoratively as I'm going to say it but are more ruthless in how they think about their, the talent that supports their business, that's the one that actually seems to be more, and you're the leader of all HR people in the world who are more people centric, more empathetic, are going to have a significant competitive advantage. It doesn't mean I can guarantee you employment for life. It doesn't mean that I can guarantee that you always be the highest paid person in your field, but what I can strive for, aspire to, is to create the best work-life integration that meets your needs, comma, and ours.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Of course, that's what we are all aspiring for, which is why, when you sent the article yeah, these two things can be true that we, as employers, want an amazing employer brand, for all the reasons that you discussed. I want an active alumni group that's supportive of me. I formerly worked there. It's a great place. I want all of that. Check, check, check and check. Formerly worked there, it's a great place. I want all of that. Check, check, check and check.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I just think that when we poll employees I'm going to go back to the argument I had we poll employees and they say you've not been loyal to me. And then I say they say, oh, my last employer wasn't loyal. They laid me off. How many jobs did you have before that employer? Oh, eight. How old are you? 30. Were you laid off before? No, I left voluntarily for the other seven, and they don't hear themselves. And I'm like well, the other seven employees would say the same thing about you.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:And so when that happens 161 million times, which is the size of the US workforce and I'm not suggesting everyone's turning, but when it happens enough you train the companies to be less committed to loyalty I'm going to treat you well while you're here. So that's what I mean. Two things can be true. You're advocating for treating people well, et cetera, and I don't think I don't know an HR person in this world who would disagree with that. But the question is for the long term, where do we just agree that? You know, while you're here, I'm going to do really right by you, but at the time that you decide to move on, or I decide to move on, that's it. That was fun.
Bob Goodwin:Well, you mentioned something I was going to bring up anyway, which is alumni groups. I think that is a massively underutilized force for good for the employer. I'm in Cincinnati. As you know. Procter Gamble, largest consumer packaged goods company in the world, has an extremely robust global alumni network and it works to their advantage because they maintain a very positive relationship with people, and so also you've got people who are bringing them innovation, ideas right, Bringing them talent, doing all kinds of things that you know, bringing them distribution for their products so many things that work to Proctor's benefit by taking a little bit of a longer view and Proctor's famous for not hiring mid-career people. It's like you start at Procter, you retire at Procter, or you start at Procter and get hired away or do whatever, but you still have this affinity for P&G that, again, I think I know works to their tangible benefit.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:And I think that's true of so many companies. I mean, there are some outliers where that's not the case, but the reality is I come from a law firm and I'm proud to say I was an associate or a partner at X law firm and you know they actually helped me when I decided to go in-house. They said you go there because they were smart. One day this guy will be our client. We don't want to leave him here, you know. He just shouldn't leave the law firm pissed off with us and we should want to support him in his endeavors. So you're right, there's a way to make this work.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:But you know, as we wrap, I really want to get back to what I think is the real conversation. Employees and employers have to look in the proverbial mirrors and just say you know, if I want loyalty from the organization, am I giving the organization loyalty? If I want them to give me job security, am I giving them security about my services? You know, and if I know, being honest with myself at that moment when no one else is around you, that there is a number or a set of circumstances or a geography or an industry that would make me leave, then I've got to be honest and say so. Why shouldn't the company do the same thing?
Bob Goodwin:Right and so this is what I love, love, love about talking to you is none of these things are binary. This is all in a continuum, right, and so I'm just advocating that. You know, nobody can make an absolute promise. I can't promise you employment for life. I'm not promising you I'm going to work here forever. However. However, there is in our mutual best interest to continue to support each other.
Bob Goodwin:The best way that works for our current and likely future circumstances and because what we haven't talked about this is the non-binary nature of it too is retention, productivity, engagement, right. And so if I feel like I'm being treated well and look, I get it to business and the company's got to do what the company's got to do on a given day, but generally, I believe that they want to help me and do right by me and continue to educate me. Whatever, I'm going to give them my best work. I'm going to proactively bring you my ideas, johnny, instead of saying screw it Like I don't care, I don't care, so I'll do the bare minimum and have my lazy girl job.
Bob Goodwin:Yep, back to another WorkWire episode, right, versus? No, I'm a fully engaged associate at this company. I'm proud of what we do and I want to do my best work. I get fulfillment from doing that. I think the companies that can foster that environment, stopping short, obviously, of employment for life and highest compensation and other kind of just over-the-top demands. I feel like this isn't just sort of mom and apple pie like Bob who would be against those things, because what we're seeing in the data is people aren't finding even that level consistently.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:That's right, bob, you just nailed it and it made me think about some of our other conversations on this topic. I liken the workplace commitment, the relationship between worker and employee a worker who is the employee, by the way, an employer to any other relationship, a romantic relationship, a marriage. Let's agree about who we are and everyone's not for everyone. I think part of the problem that we're seeing is people have gone to organizations or organizations have recruited people because they want the talent of the day and they haven't looked to your point. Are we matched? Do I agree with your values? Do I agree with the way you work? Do I like?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:We have to be very careful as employers not to just put our our best foot forward during the recruitment process and court to use the language people and only tell them you should be honest about how our organization works, and you've heard me say this before. We should hire for people who are technically competent but also and equally, culturally aligned. Part of the loyalty disconnect is we have overcorrected by hiring in many instances the person who is the best qualified right, the best set of credentials, degrees, and we haven't looked for cultural alignment. Well, that's the beginning of a disloyalty problem, because you only want me on my best day. You don't want me if I go through a divorce. You don't want me if I have to leave early to go take care of and go to my kid's basketball game. You don't want that person. You want a machine. You pay me a lot of money and you want me to deliver like that and you don't care about the other things. Those are cultural questions that need to be addressed on the front end. Yes, right, if you hire me purely.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:And I'm going to go back to the sports analogy. You know I've seen and heard of players in professional sports who've said I know my wife's having a baby, but we got a big game today. But you know that when you walk in the door, this is how the NBA and the NFL work. You wouldn't expect me to say that to you at Charm. It's because I didn't tell you that I also don't pay like the NBA. So it's all about being honest. I think the reason we have loyalty, the sense that the contract is broken, is because neither side has revisited the terms of the contract and been honest about how this relationship is going to work.
Bob Goodwin:Well am very very glad that johnny c taylor jr is at the helm of sherm, because you're leading hard conversations. This is a tough one. It is a tough one and it impacts everybody. You know, if we care about work workers in the workplace, then that pretty much impacts everybody, I know. And so just having open, honest, educated, informed conversations about this that are driven by both values and data is going to make the workplace a better place Not a perfect place, but better. And that's what I love about doing the WorkWire with you is we have the opportunity to unpack these things a little bit and hopefully cause people to think, go back to their workplace and say, hey, I heard something, I'd like to see how that fits here. So for that I appreciate you.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:So thank you and I want to thank you because I loved this conversation. I tell you people walk up and say you always agree, we're not disagreeing. The goal here is to make sure that our listening audience takes both or at least sometimes it's three or four different perspectives. It's just take and say I hadn't thought about that before, don't just listen to this for someone to agree with you Because that's the whole problem, I think, in all of our conversations is people go to the media that is likely to tell them what they want to hear. What I love about what you and this is your baby and I have to give credit to the man that this is a conversation. We're going to give you both sides, or maybe three or four sides of the conversation and then walk away and say how can I be a better people manager, hr person in my practice, employees that's how you got me Better employee. Ask myself I want loyalty from my employer. Am I willing to give that same level, whatever the level is? Am I willing to give that same commitment? I got to say this before I go.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:An employee came in and told me they were going to leave, for it was a really big job for him and I said that's great, I understand it. How would you have felt if I said well, you know, I'd gotten to the point in my career where I wanted other experiences, et cetera, and I found this other place? And I said so, you've been interviewing, you've been showing up to my meetings, you've been at my house, you've been going on, you've done all these things with me and you were interviewing. How would you have felt if I'd said you know, sally's been with us for 10 years.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I think I could find a different person out there and I was out interviewing. You think everything's wonderful, right? And you found out that I was interviewing candidates to replace you. How would you have felt? And she just looked at me and I said, yeah, that's the problem with loyalty. You want it from me, you're not prepared to give it to me, and that's the mutuality aspect of this and reciprocity. You were cheating on me and you'd be really pissed if you found out that I was out interviewing for it to replace you.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, so yeah all I can say is you're awesome.
Bob Goodwin:I appreciate the just real thinking, adult level conversation on hard topics and to get people to not just, as you say, kind of align with the one data feed that they get on something, but to really kind of think. You know, I hadn't thought about it that way, johnny, that's true. You know, I think it kind of sucked when you fired me, but I guess I fired you and I quit. I never really framed it that way in my head, so let's keep unpacking these topics. This is awesome. In the meantime, you are the man. I'm just happy to be in your presence. Everyone, thank you so much for taking a few minutes out of your day to listen to Johnny and I talk about a tough topic. If you've got thoughts, we'd love for you to email us. I'm at bob at careerclub, johnny's johnnytaylor at shermorg. We'd love to hear your thoughts. You can post on LinkedIn. We'd just love to hear from you. But we do appreciate you and thanks again for taking a few minutes of your day with us.
Speaker 1:Johnny bless you. Thank you so much. You will Check out careerclub for personalized help with your job search. Visit shrmorg to become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide.