What does loyalty to an employer mean? What is “Company Loyalty to the Client”? Example. Increasing loyalty in the hotel business

03.10.2023

To begin with, it is worth defining the term – what is staff loyalty. Loyalty usually means a high degree of employee devotion to the interests of the organization and decency towards it. In addition, loyalty can be considered the desire to defend the interests of the organization when interacting with clients and partners. Let's talk about loyalty, keeping in mind the first meaning of this term - devotion to the company.

So, what is employee loyalty expressed in? To answer this question, let's consider several important aspects.

1. Is it possible to measure potential loyalty when hiring?

One of the foundations of employee loyalty is the coincidence of his life and business values with the values of the organization. This can be assessed during an interview with a candidate using some projective questions (by answering questions about other people, a person “gives away” himself):

What is a good team?
What should a good leader be like?
What is success?
What is a good job?

The more the candidate’s answers coincide with the reality and values of the company, the greater the likelihood of his motivation and loyalty.

Another tool is a question that allows you to assess how much a person perceives the organization’s problems as his own:

Your colleague, neither a manager nor a subordinate, made a wrong transaction. You found out about this by accident. Only you have the information. Your actions?

The answer: “This is not my problem, not my business - he has his own boss,” indicates that the person does not consider the problems of the organization to be his own. All other answers (“I’ll talk to him,” “I’ll think about what to do,” etc.) indicate that the person, to a certain extent, cares about the organization.

There are many methods, including those that take into account the specifics of the pharmaceutical business, that allow you to diagnose the loyalty of a potential employee at the selection stage.

2. What is the difference between a person's integrity and his loyalty to an organization?

Very often these two concepts are confused. In fact, it often happens like this: a person is honest and will not steal or deceive the company under any circumstances. However, at the same time, he may not value his organization and absolutely calmly watch how others do it. A loyal employee must defend the interests of the organization, so it is very important that he values it, and also understands the “rules of the game” - what is considered right and wrong in the company.

So, you have hired people who are prone to loyalty. But will they actually be loyal?

3. The answer to this question also depends on how effectively you cultivate loyalty. How to do this:

Motivate your employees properly. Each HR specialist has his own “motivator map” (a set of key motivational factors), the influence of which gives the greatest effect. It is important that managers are able to identify and use these motivators correctly.
Clearly define the “rules of the game.” This gives people confidence and stability, and therefore increases true commitment to the company. It is important to avoid replacing real values with ostentatious ones. You should not assume that those who sit at work until night and demonstrate their zeal in every possible way are loyal. Loyalty is best characterized by achieving positive results for the organization and adhering to the company's values, mission and rules.
Corporate culture, cultivated in the company and understood by the employee, is one of the very effective tools for increasing loyalty. A feeling of involvement in a common cause, pride in one’s team and company makes people more loyal. Clearly defined and shared values, team building work, and general corporate events - all this helps to increase loyalty.
The behavior of the immediate manager, who actually demonstrates dedication to the organization and cares deeply about the results of work, is another important tool for instilling loyalty.
Proper management of conflicts and changes is an essential condition for maintaining staff loyalty.

4. What to do if an employee is disloyal?

First of all, it should be assessed whether it is managed and motivated correctly. If the problem is weak leadership, you urgently need to learn how to manage people. And here again the technique of identifying and using the “motivator map” comes to the rescue.

If everything possible has been done in this regard, then probably the employee is simply not suitable for the organization, and the organization is not suitable for the employee. Or is it a consequence of incorrect selection. In such cases, it is better to part ways peacefully.

If a person is of particular value as a specialist, and the company is extremely interested in him, it is worth monitoring him as carefully as possible - after all, a disloyal employee is not so dedicated to the job and may be slack.

So, what is employee loyalty expressed in? To answer this question, let's consider several important aspects.

1. Is it possible to measure potential loyalty when hiring?

What is a good team?

What should a good leader be like?

What is success?

What is a good job?

The more the candidate’s answers coincide with the reality and values of the company, the greater the likelihood of his motivation and loyalty.

Another tool is a question that allows you to assess how much a person perceives the organization’s problems as his own:

Your colleague, neither a manager nor a subordinate, made a wrong transaction. You found out about this by accident. Only you have the information. Your actions?

There are many methods, including those that take into account the specifics of the pharmaceutical business, that allow you to diagnose the loyalty of a potential employee at the selection stage.

2. What is the difference between a person's integrity and his loyalty to an organization?

So, you have hired people who are prone to loyalty. But will they actually be loyal?

3. The answer to this question also depends on how effectively you cultivate loyalty. How to do this:

Motivate your employees properly. Each HR specialist has his own “motivator map” (a set of key motivational factors), the influence of which gives the greatest effect. It is important that managers are able to identify and use these motivators correctly.

Clearly define the “rules of the game.” This gives people confidence and stability, and therefore increases true commitment to the company. It is important to avoid replacing real values with ostentatious ones. You should not assume that those who sit at work until night and demonstrate their zeal in every possible way are loyal. Loyalty is best characterized by achieving positive results for the organization and adhering to the company's values, mission and rules.

Corporate culture, cultivated in the company and understood by the employee, is one of the very effective tools for increasing loyalty. A feeling of involvement in a common cause, pride in one’s team and company makes people more loyal. Clearly defined and shared values, team building work, and general corporate events - all this helps to increase loyalty.

The behavior of the immediate manager, who actually demonstrates dedication to the organization and cares deeply about the results of work, is another important tool for instilling loyalty.

Proper management of conflicts and changes is an essential condition for maintaining staff loyalty.

4. What to do if an employee is disloyal?

5. What methods exist for assessing the loyalty of working employees?

One of the most important techniques for assessing loyalty is observation. It is worth noting the following points in the employee’s work:

Is he focused on achieving an optimal result, is he ready to sacrifice additional time and effort for this?

Does he show initiative in optimizing business processes in his place;

Is the organization's resources, including financial, economical?

Are you ready to help others in order to achieve a better result?

Does he demonstrate himself in the team (not necessarily very active);

Does he offer something in return, criticizing the existing state of affairs;

When faced with a problem, does he look for solutions or explanations as to why this cannot be done;

Does he often speak poorly about the company and the activities of his colleagues;

How capable and inclined to defend the interests of the company.

Another option for assessing loyalty and motivation, and these concepts are closely related, is anonymous surveys, which may include the following questions:

What is satisfying and what is not about your job, team, company?

What positives and negatives do you see in the company's culture?

What do you consider to be the hallmarks of the team?

How many years do you plan to work in this position? In this company?

You can also use a survey using projective methods, and in the end see how many coincidences there are between employee expectations and reality. The more there are, the higher the loyalty.

A lot can be said and written about loyalty. This article has indicated only the tip of the iceberg - other aspects of this multifaceted topic require a separate, more detailed discussion.

At the very beginning, it is worth saying that in general, staff loyalty is the loyalty and devotion between an employer and an employee during their employment relationship.

What exactly is the loyalty of an organization's staff?

The term "loyal" comes from the Old French word loyal (its source is the Latin word lex), and also from the Latin legalis - meaning "law-abiding, honest and fair in dealings with people and organizations." Loyalty is evidence of employee trust in the company's leaders, mission, and goals. This is a state where there is a sense of common interests, a common destiny and relationship between employees and company management. When loyalty is widespread, we are dealing with self-motivation of employees, a sense of responsibility for the results and fate of the company.

Along with the growing sense of responsibility, involvement also grows, which makes it possible to loosen control over the employee. A loyal employee is willing to work for the company and its success is seen as personal success. Loyalty is formed mainly due to the manager’s personality, characteristics or knowledge.

Loyalty is a kind of ethical value. The following factors are important for a faithful employee:

high self-esteem is associated with positive impact of the work process;
positive experience related to the functions performed;
satisfaction with pay;
the presence of bonuses not related to functional responsibilities (lunch payment, free travel).

The Labor Code, as the main source regulating the rights and obligations of both parties in labor relations, does not relate loyalty to the obligations of the employer or employee. However, “loss of trust in the employee” may be one of the reasons for dismissal.

The role of the degree of employee loyalty in the work of the organization

Employee loyalty is a variable value and changes over time as the relationship between employees and the organization develops. Assessing staff loyalty can help determine its degree, because commitment can be a valuable resource in an organization’s strategy because:

affects the stability of employment, and thereby economic sustainability;
contributes to strengthening customer satisfaction and loyalty;
the ability to work and the return on training increases;
costs associated with searching, hiring and training new employees are reduced;
a large proportion of loyal employees allows for more effective planning in the organization, and therefore ensures the achievement of economic goals.

Driving motives

Managing the loyalty of an organization's personnel is possible, but first it is necessary to identify the motives. What motivates a loyal employee? This is a very important question.

Motives may depend on external reasons, as well as on the character and personality traits of a person.

They can be divided into rational-functional and emotional-symbolic.

The formation of rational-functional motives is a direct consequence of staying in the organization (availability of wages as a result of long years of service, easier access to leadership positions, possession of organizational knowledge).

Emotional-symbolic – affective motives arising from feelings and emotions (relationships with other employees of the organization, satisfaction with cooperation with them).

The motives of a loyal employee may differ from those listed. For example, the internal desire for obedience, submission and flawless execution of instructions. Employee loyalty is a complex concept, and the main influence on its intensity and nature is exerted by internal mechanisms. Let's look at their types:

trust is a relationship between two parties, which is based on the confidence that the assigned tasks will be carried out with full responsibility;
habit - means a skill, a kind of automatism;
Commitment to the organization is understood as identifying one’s goals with the goals and values of the company, perceiving the goals of the organization as one’s own.

Based on the above internal mechanisms, it is possible to create a typology of such a complex phenomenon as loyalty. We can distinguish the following types:

conscious - the employee consciously chose the organization and work in it, he is used to it, but his commitment to the organization is low;
rational - the employee is used to working in the organization and trusting the employer, but his commitment to the organization is not high;
involved - great trust and participation in the affairs of the organization, taking into account the level of wages and the remuneration system;
partnership is a very high level of commitment to the organization, trust and habit;
routine – lack of commitment and trust, just a habit;
forced – no opportunity to change employer, lack of trust and commitment;
permissive – limited participation with existing trust and habit.

Formation and increase of loyalty

With monetary motivation, a certain level of loyalty is developed, but it cannot be called true. Therefore, non-financial methods are used to increase staff loyalty, which, depending on the industry, can take different forms. Let's consider their options:

allocated parking space;
thirteenth salary, payment for lunches;
sick leave without sick leave;
massage therapist in the office;
lack of dress code;
training at company expense;
motivating hours;
personal psychologist or coach;
interesting original projects;
overseas business trips.

Using the above can increase employee commitment.

Each individual organization must develop its own motivation program, which will be adapted both to the specifics of the company and to the personality traits of each individual employee, which will ensure the reliability and loyalty of the staff and increase engagement.

Every company owner wants to achieve full employee commitment - to treat the business as if it were their own.

We will tell you how to increase staff loyalty and what to consider when assessing engagement.

High expectations

Unconditional loyalty is a myth. Therefore, investing large sums in developing employee loyalty is useless.

Professor Jonas Ridderstrale of the Stockholm School of Economics has proven that management's obsession with creating a team of loyal employees who are ready for anything only demotivates. According to the Swedish economist, if an employee did a good job and went home on time, he is a great employee.

We must not forget that everyone is interested in personal gain, and calling on employees to “make sacrifices” for the sake of the company’s success is at least stupid.

In addition, achieving 100% productivity from each employee is also pointless. For example, what will the fanatical devotion of a secretary or office manager change? It is more profitable to cultivate this quality in promising personnel, whose work results have a real impact on the state of the business.

What is "loyalty"

Managers often make the same mistake when assessing staff engagement - they do not take into account the quality and complexity of the work being performed. For most, loyalty is only a matter of degree of fidelity.

To correctly assess employee engagement, you first need to establish a connection between the company’s benefit and the personal benefit of the individual employee. In other words, will his efforts be rewarded?

In addition, loyalty is a rather vague and difficult to measure concept. It is much more important to monitor the overall satisfaction and atmosphere in the team. Research has shown that non-material motivation and human concern for comfort qualitatively increase the “level of happiness” within the company.

As they say in the book "The Tao of Tayota. 14 management principles of the world's leading company": "A happy employee is a good employee."

4 simple ways to increase employee engagement

One of the easiest ways to influence the level of loyalty is abandon the classic vertical hierarchy. Openness and accessibility of management create trusting relationships in the company, and are recognized as an effective way of motivation.

It has long been no secret that high salaries are not the only way to retain valuable employees. Not for everyone, material wealth is the fundamental aspiration of the individual; remember Maslow’s pyramid. But everyone needs to realize their own importance.

Just start praising workers. To the point, of course. You can celebrate achievements either one-on-one or publicly - use both methods.

Corporate events are the best team building. Develop your corporate culture, because it’s not only New Year’s parties and birthday cake. Create your own traditions, chips, reward system. Make life at the office interesting and fulfilling.

The boss does not always know what the employees want. Listen their employees. Keep a box of ideas and suggestions or discuss everything over tea once a month.

A new computer mouse, a different brand of cookies or a board game - something seemingly trivial at first glance can greatly affect the level of employee satisfaction.

The history of the development of the study of employee loyalty is almost 50 years. The first studies began in the 60s of the 20th century abroad. In Russia, the phenomenon of loyalty began to be actively studied in the 90s of the same century. As a result, the concept of staff loyalty was formed, defined as the ability of an employee to accept and follow the norms and rules of the company without significant effort on himself, to share the values of the organization, manifesting this in daily work behavior and interaction with employees and external partners.

Based on the severity of quality, it is customary to distinguish the following types of staff loyalty:

Affective, based on dedication to the organization, a positive emotional attitude towards working in the organization. Such employees are able to feel a sense of pride in the company, joy not only for their achievements, but also for the overall results achieved by the entire team.
Behavioral, formed due to a long period of work at the enterprise. Such specialists share the goals and values of the organization and are ready to work for a long time without changing their place of employment.
Normative, based on the principle of obligation: the employee believes that he must give his knowledge and skills to the enterprise, performing his work with high quality, in return for the conditions created for him. For such employees, evaluation of their work and feedback on the quality of the result are important.

What determines

Every company would like to have a staff of specialists who are absolutely loyal to the organization. However, the ideal is hardly achievable for several reasons:

a number of employees are hired without assessing their ability to accept the company’s culture, its traditions and requirements;
An employee's attitude towards the enterprise changes over time, and commitment can transform into disloyalty.

You can determine the levels of staff loyalty by observing the activities and communications of employees.

There are three main types of behavior corresponding to different levels of quality formation. Each of them determines how deeply an employee trusts the company and accepts its standards.

Acceptance of external attributes

Employees with this type of loyalty demonstrate it when the situation demands it. Sitting in an office at a table on which there is a diary, a calendar, and a pen with the organization’s logo, the specialist behaves in accordance with the company’s requirements for employees. But as soon as he leaves the enterprise, he will discuss with colleagues the injustice of pay, boss or working conditions.

Loyalty at the level of action

Specialists with this level of quality development fulfill the requirements of the enterprise because they work here, but at the same time the company does not become truly valuable to them. They are easily influenced by disloyal employees and can change their opinion about the company if the employees around them actively discuss or condemn management and work rules. If they are influenced by active adherents of the organization's values, they will effortlessly follow corporate standards.

Loyalty at the Ability Level

This type of expression is the most desirable option for any company and it is possessed by specialists who have been brought up from childhood on certain ideals and values that have not only material expression. They know how to share other people's beliefs and follow the rules. Such employees take a closer look at the company in the first months of work and may leave it, believing that the values and the overall format of the corporate culture do not meet their expectations, although other conditions are quite satisfactory to them. They are not ready to lie to themselves and others that they are proud to work in the organization. These specialists can oppose any work initiatives and decisions, always arguing that innovation can harm the business and the enterprise. Thanks to such employees, companies make a breakthrough in the market, because they have real enthusiasts and fans of their business who are ready to spend time and effort on solving corporate problems because they sincerely believe in them.

How to form

Increasing the loyalty of the organization's personnel is a task that should always be on the agenda, since the level of commitment to the organization can change depending on a whole range of external and internal factors.

Key factors of personnel loyalty that influence the formation of sustainable acceptance by specialists of the goals, norms and rules of the organization are related to:

with corporate culture;
business organization and the presence of system management;
applied HR technologies.

At the level of corporate culture, invaluable assistance in the formation and development of loyalty is provided by:

mission and goals of the enterprise;
developed corporate standards of conduct and ethics;
symbols that help employees identify themselves with the company;
demonstration of commitment to the goals of the enterprise on the part of management, whose actions do not contradict the declared values and rules.

Organizing a business helps to structure work, make working conditions and requirements for performing work tasks transparent, and focus on achieving high-quality results.

A staff loyalty program developed by HR specialists should be created taking into account all human resource management processes:

at the hiring stage, apply methods for assessing candidates’ loyalty as a business quality;
during the adaptation process, conduct welcome training, organize a workplace, identify mentors and supervisors for a high-quality introduction to the position and adaptation of the newcomer to the work rules;
during assessment, provide mandatory feedback on the results obtained and formulate development plans;
as part of the implementation of training programs, conduct team building trainings, include special exercises in the training on personnel loyalty to identify the employee with the company;
when building a system of material and non-material incentives, include mandatory monitoring of staff satisfaction with work in the organization, and take into account the current needs of employees when developing motivational programs;
when preparing events to develop corporate culture, create scenarios for holidays that take into account the need to develop the loyalty of specialists.

At the level of managing subordinates, each manager directly influences the formation of staff loyalty. Therefore, during daily work interaction it is necessary:

provide timely feedback to subordinates on the results of task completion;
apply technologies of constructive criticism;
involve employees in decision making;
provide opportunities for initiative.

Assessment methods

Assessing staff loyalty is one of the functional tasks of HR departments.

The main methods include:

observation of an employee with filling out a special observation sheet;
questionnaires, including questionnaires to determine the degree of job satisfaction, conducting surveys;
monitoring online job search sites to see if company employees post resumes to look for a new job;
using interviews when hiring personnel with questions assessing the candidate’s ability to show loyalty to the company;
inclusion of questions to assess loyalty in assessment interviews of working personnel during certification or assessment;
application of the “360 degree” method, which allows quality to be assessed by several respondents at once, including the self-assessment of the employee himself;
Conducting exit interviews with departing specialists.

To increase customer loyalty to a product or service, companies create a personal loyalty account. This tool can also be created for employees of an organization in order to receive feedback on how much they remain committed to the organization, trust it and whether they are ready to continue building their career at the enterprise.

What does it ultimately affect?

Personnel loyalty management allows organizations to reduce the number of disloyal specialists who belong to the category of “at-risk” employees.

They can cause significant damage to an organization, including material damage. Rejection of rules and regulations and reluctance to follow them can provoke:

theft of material assets;
transfer or disclosure of confidential information to third parties;
neglect of duties, failure to meet planned deadlines, which may result in the imposition of penalties on the organization;
dismissal from the company during the implementation of complex projects for which it is impossible to quickly find a replacement, as a result of which the company loses profit.

In companies with an attentive attitude to the needs of subordinates, with respect and recognition of the merits of employees, and concern for comfortable working conditions, employees not only do not commit such actions, but in some cases proactively prevent the occurrence of possible incidents on the part of individual employees of the organization. By investing in the development of staff loyalty, companies minimize the risks of possible losses due to the fault of staff and increase overall operational efficiency.