A Liverpool footballer known as a home grown talent and referred to by supports as ,”one of our own” leaves to play for Real Madrid the fans are disgusted at his lack of loyalty. The boss of Ryanair is reported to be in-line for a loyalty bonus of €111m. The CE makes it clear to their senior Management team that they consider dissent as personal disloyalty. The board’s reaction to a whistleblower going public and damaging the organisations reputation is to view it as disloyalty. An employee takes a pay cut to save the company. I don’t believe any of the above are examples of loyalty/disloyalty.

Loyalty means greater commitment, dedication, willingness to go beyond expectations but in an era of higher mobility it doesn’t necessary mean staying with the same organisation. According to William Werther – Professor of Executive Management in the School of Business Administration, the University of Miami- Employers recognise the benefits of a loyal workforce but don’t feel there is much of it about and are not sure what to do about it.

But there is plenty of evidence of employees and their managers demonstrating commitment, in health and social care organisations employees routinely stay after their shift has finished because of staffing shortages and the needs of patients/clients. Admittedly this dedication is more about their committed to the patient than their loyalty to the organisation but the organisation benefits greatly from this goodwill. In all sorts of organisations employees take on extra work, work late, do unpaid overtime to meet an important deadline not because they want to increase the profits of the organisation or enhance its reputation but because their manager asked them to.

So if loyalty is about commitment and dedication then that Liverpool player showed plenty of both in the years he played for the club. The CE who considers any dissent by their senior management team as disloyalty is simply demonstrating poor leadership. Similarly a board that considers whistle blowers disloyal and is more concerned with the reputation of the organisation that addressing bad practice is heading up an organisation that doesn’t warrant its employees loyalty. A group of employees who take a pay cut to save the company may simply be trying to save their jobs in a difficult employment market.

Employee commitment and dedication can do wonders for a company. Executives need to recognise how much of it is about, resist the temptation to exploit good will and remind themselves that investing in competent compassionate managers increases loyalty to managers resulting in higher levels of commitment and dedication from employees.