Mr. A, 37 years old, worked for XYZ enterprise for 15 years, being a manager for 10 years. If we see that profile, surely in nowadays work environment, a Talent Management/Human Resource Management can consider that a great loyalty. Really?

Some says, loyalty is devotion and faithfulness to a cause, country, group, or person. In this case, a company / enterprise. Then, what is a devotion? Merriam-Webster define devotion as "the use of time, money, energy, etc., for a particular purpose", and faithfulness will defined as "steadfast in affection or allegiance (loyalty)".

When we see someone worked for a longest time ever for a company, it doesn't automatically translate into a loyalty. That's what've been bugging me for long time. Well, we often see that a company give rewards for those with great loyalty towards them based on the employee's service period, and it's interesting to see why do they decide on that.

If a devotion is translated into using their time, money, energy, etc., do working 15 years in a company can be automatically considered into using their time? I don't think so. Some of those who are categorized as a loyal employee jsut being there because they don't know where to go, or too engulfed with their comfort zone, with no one disturbing their inner peace. Have you notice that? No creativity, no challenge, no risk taking, no exploration, and no more passion to achieve something higher. Just working for annual targets, with the same approach, with the same routinity, and with the same excuse when things are going wrong.

In my opinion, loyalty can't be evaluate based on service period only. Surely that is some basis for that, but long service period only not enough to prove a loyalty. When you stop challenging a new limit for the company, then you lost your loyalty to the company, along with your faith for yourself that you can do much better and elevate to the next level.

Being a manager for 10 years or more doesn't sound any good for me. Unless your portfolio increase and varied to some extent, I can say that you are stagnated. How can someone achieve a different achievement when all one's do is "business as usual"?

Even someone who only work for a year, can be considered to have a great loyalty if one's do really dedicated all of one's might, resource, and intellectual to do something meaningful to the company, as the company reward him well, the loyalty can turned into a great asset definitely.

Of course, you can argue that loyalty should be tested over time, like a good sword has to be tempered a lot to be strong enough. I agree, the point I'm making here is, don't consider a sword that have been tempered half-baked for a long time in a same category with other that have been tempered with all perfection in slightly shorter time. Even a mass produced knife would perform better than the former one.

It might unjust to observe a loyalty just from an employee side, we must not forget that a loyalty is created by employers, not something that you take for granted. If employer took a good care for their employees, they will reap the benefits of loyalty. I know that some might try to take advantage over that and switch over to competitor for another small payrise, but if you able to plant a loyalty seed in the right employee, why should you worried over those small fry?

Nevertheless, loyalty is something that is getting harder and harder to find in this gen-x and soon to be in optimum productivity ~ millenial generation. As a gen-x, I too faced with lots of peer pressure when it comes to loyalty. Those millenials are even more likely to job-hop than our gen-x generations. It surely will become a great challenge for any companies in the next 5 years on how to retain your best employees. That's where a loyalty factor become super important, for company and employees altogether.

Can you find your company's loyalty factor? (CBA)