Each person, guided by intuition, can distinguish loyal behavior of someone from the opposite. In general, it manifests itself in devotion to someone or something. If we talk about the loyalty of the staff in the organization, then we are talking about loyalty to the company, management and colleagues. The normal level of loyalty indicates that employees strive to comply with the organizational culture of the company, accept its policy and are ready to follow the principles defined by the leadership to achieve common goals.
However, the bosses of the enterprise are not always able to achieve the proper level of loyalty of their own personnel, which entails a lot of problems. This article will help to understand what it is, how to determine the level, and also talk about how to build staff loyalty within the company.
What it is?
Personnel loyalty is the positive attitude of the employee or employee towards the management, organization policies and the staff in which he works. Professional human resources managers note that the basis is the desire of the company’s employees to benefit her and avoid those actions that could harm.
Differences from Reliability
It is worth noting that such concepts as staff loyalty and trustworthiness are often confused. Reliability is the adherence to generally accepted standards in the organization, the performance of work in an appropriate manner to achieve common goals.
A trustworthy employee can effectively carry out his work, but at the same time he may be disloyal in relation to the leadership, the culture of the organization, its principles. In general, employee trustworthiness indicates the degree of normativeness of his behavior in relation to the company, and loyalty is the degree of tolerance and acceptance of the company.
Essence
From the point of view of psychology, staff loyalty is a kind of attitude that develops commitment and a sense of pride among employees that they work in a particular company. It should be remembered that such an employee is ready to put up with some requirements and deeply accept others. From this we can conclude that staff loyalty is a correct, friendly behavior and respectful attitude to management and colleagues.
Increasing loyalty in labor collectives always leads to the fact that employees begin to look for all internal and external resources and reserves to achieve the necessary, and sometimes even maximum performance. The loyalty of the company's staff often helps in crisis situations and allows employees to constantly develop, improve their knowledge and find innovative ways to solve any work tasks.
Required Attributes
Every enterprise that wants to develop and work in the long term is obliged to take care of the proper level and development of staff loyalty. This is due to the fact that in general it is a key factor in the formation of professional motivation. Motivated loyal employees value their workplace and strive to develop, they take all issues very seriously and are ready to make every effort to achieve the goals set for them by their bosses.
Based on the foregoing, it is important to remember that loyalty has its required attributes, namely:
- employee’s pride in being part of a team or company;
- an undisguised, sincere demonstration of a friendly and respectful attitude towards management and colleagues;
- willingness to warn of dangers that could negatively affect companies;
- sincere concern for the success of the company and the team;
- honesty in relation to the company, management and colleagues;
- desire to perform their duties in the best way;
- readiness in certain situations to make small sacrifices for the sake of the company.
If the employee owns a large part of these attributes, then in this case we can say that he is absolutely loyal to the company and management.
Occurrence factors
The process of managing staff loyalty is inconceivable without knowing what factors can affect its occurrence among employees of the organization. The following factors are distinguished:
- employee experience (model of previous business relationships at past workplaces);
- personal values;
- due attention to the employee;
- feeling of pride.
It is worthwhile to dwell on each factor. Speaking about the experience, they mean the degree of trust in the company that a person had at his last job. In order to understand how difficult it will be to instill in a person a sense of loyalty, it is necessary to clarify with him during the interview how well he got along with colleagues and management at the previous place of work, what he was comfortable with, what angered him, and what relations should be between colleagues and leadership. Based on the answers, you can determine how well a person will fit into the existing level of loyalty and how hard it will be to instill this feeling in him.
The formation of personal values is directly related to existing experience. Man's beliefs about certain phenomena are extremely difficult to change. If a person is confident that professionalism does not affect career advancement, and you can get a well-paid position only by having personal connections, then it is difficult to expect from him behavior that proves the opposite.
An extremely important factor in the formation of staff loyalty is the attention of each employee from the side of the enterprise. Thus, we can note the importance of man for the company. Perhaps this factor can also be called human, since in working with people it is important to emphasize that he is not just an employee, but part of one whole mechanism, and that he deserves the trust of the company. Here it is extremely important to remember that each person evaluates attention in different ways, since for one there will be enough congratulations on holidays, and for the other there will be nothing better than material incentives, but for the third - the definition of an individual work schedule. But in any case, it must be remembered that the attention of the company to its employees at the same time should be comprehensive, adequate and not harm the overall discipline.
The next factor influencing the formation of loyalty is pride in belonging to the company and the team. When a company succeeds, each employee experiences certain feelings, and if you point out to the employees that this is the merit of each of them, you can strengthen the feeling of joy for the goals achieved and make employees proud of the team, themselves and the company as a whole.
Levels
The higher the level of staff loyalty, the more reliable is the employee for the company. These levels are distinguished:
- The first level, which is the external paraphernalia, indicating ownership of the company. Wearing branded clothing, using branded ashtrays, cups or office supplies is where any company should begin work to increase staff loyalty. At this level, it is difficult to talk about complete trust in the enterprise, but there is a high probability that the employee will be able to feel himself part of it.
- At the level of behavior, which implies compliance with the rules and compliance with the norms. At this level, loyalty is manifested in the form of a discussion of business events in the company, collective congratulations to the commanding staff or a joint snack at lunch time.
- At the level of abilities is expressed in accordance with the abilities of each employee to the requirements of the company. A properly selected employee, performing daily work, adheres to the principles that his position requires, thereby reproducing the expected behavior. The formation of this level of loyalty should occur during the selection and hiring of personnel, taking into account the personal qualities of each candidate.
- At the level of belief is expressed in the full acceptance of the principles and beliefs of the company. This level is one of the highest, and its achievement is an extremely difficult task for leadership.
- At the level of identity is the highest degree, since here every employee must believe in themselves, the company and colleagues. This level is expressed in the full acceptance of all beliefs, the performance of their work in the best way, and, most importantly, employees are ready to constantly improve independently in order to comply with the ideology of the company.
Assessment of staff loyalty
When studying loyalty at an enterprise, it should be remembered that research should be scientifically sound and necessarily comprehensive. Assessing the level of staff loyalty, it is best to resort to indirect methods.
At the time of study, it must be borne in mind that it is directly interconnected with a sense of satisfaction, which in the future has a connection with motivation. Thus, it is these indicators that need to be evaluated first. Even if the employee is loyal and decent, experiencing any discomfort in the workplace, sooner or later he will leave him.
In the same way as motivation, loyalty has emotional and rational components, where the former includes faith in the idea, attachment to the team and leadership, and the latter includes payment for labor, conditions, professional development, and social package. Therefore, it is first of all necessary to study these indicators in order to understand what staff may feel uncomfortable with. Possessing these data, any manager can eradicate the problem and thereby increase the level of loyalty on the part of staff.
Determining staff loyalty
As a rule, in order to determine the level available at the enterprise, various methods are used, however, the most popular and effective method is the method of O. E. Koroleva and L. G. Pochebut.
Its essence lies in the fact that employees are issued cards with affirmative opinions, where they must indicate their agreement or disagreement with them, using a gradation of answers, expressed in a numerical range from 1 (disagree) to 11 (completely agree). It is imperative that out of 36 questions proposed in this methodology, only 18 are evaluated.
Loyalty Development Programs
Having determined the level, it is important to answer the questions whether it satisfies the company enough today, whether it is worth raising it, and if so, how to do it.
For most organizations, the first two levels are sufficient, since there is no point in increasing loyalty among those employees whose activities are severely regulated, and all processes are controlled. In this case, even with zero loyalty, the company will not suffer. But if we are talking about middle and senior managers, then it should be borne in mind that they must have a high level of commitment and faith in the company.
Each company independently chooses for itself ways to increase loyalty based on its capabilities. However, in order to expect a level increase, it is important to satisfy the following three components:
- increase trust in superiors;
- increase job satisfaction;
- build fair relations in the enterprise.
The main conditions for increasing loyalty
Increasing loyalty is an event of a complex nature, so it is important to remember about special moments and conditions. In this process, the following conditions should be kept in mind:
- All company managers should be interested in raising.
- Increasing loyalty is only cost-effective if the company is committed to long-term labor relations with staff.
- The owner must be prepared for additional material costs.
- The person responsible for increasing loyalty should have powers that will allow him to coordinate this process and manage it.
It is best to assign this responsibility to the head of the personnel department or first deputies. Thus, it will be possible to comply with all of the above conditions.
Effect on staff turnover
If the company has determined a course of long-term work, then increasing loyalty is one of the first activities that it must carry out. Therefore, managers at all levels should remember this factor and make efforts to prevent a deliberate decrease in the level of loyalty.
Unsatisfied, unmotivated and disloyal employees will leave the workplace as soon as possible, finding more suitable for them, which will bring certain losses to the company (temporary, financial). And, on the contrary, employees who are well disposed towards the management, the team and the company simply will not leave it.
Conclusion
Summing up, it is worth noting that staff loyalty is the key to the success of any company. Therefore, it is extremely important to remember that having paid due attention to this issue, you can create a highly professional team that can solve any problem and achieve the desired goals for the benefit of your company.