Loyalty toward the Employer

Traditionals and the Boomers are believed to be quite loyal toward their employers. In contrast, X-ers are found to be more loyal to their co-workers than the company. The level of loyalty among these new generations, mostly X-ers, can be understood by the following phenomenon −

• Whenever an X-er serves a two weeks' notice to his employer, it's often under the influence of another X-er, who happens to be a friend of this employee.

• It is also seen that X-ers use job switching as an opportunity for their career growth, as they trust their employers more for job security than career growth.

Probably the X-ers have learned this from their Boomer parents that being loyal to your employer does not guarantee job security. Many of them have witnessed their parents being fired, in spite of being very loyal to their employers.

Being loyal to the employer is an outdated idea for X-ers, and they often pronounce themselves proudly as not being as loyal as their ancestors. However, these studies exclude the fact that most of the X-er employees interviewed were graduates, while the Traditionals & Boomer employees were mostly undergraduates. So there lies an issue, which needs to be debated before coming to any conclusion.

Duration of Employment

Another study suggested that the older the generation, the higher their loyalty towards their employers. 70% of Traditionals and 65% of the Boomers, but only 40% of the X-ers and 20% of the Y-ers want to continue with their employer until their retirement. The reasons for these numbers could be explained by the following character traits on the Generation-X and Generation-Y employees −

• Generation X tend to question their authority without being bucked down like their earlier generations. Acknowledgments & appreciations motivate them, as opposed to money. However, an absence of money still plays a demotivation factor. They are adaptive to any situation but don’t prefer stringent schedules.

• Generation-Y has an inclination toward team work and collective action and training. They are comfortable in a flexible and independent environment, and desire a balanced life. They are very good at multi-tasking and are highly educated. A Y-er likes to be promoted much faster than his old peers. A young Y-er employee would always have less priority to work than other things in his life.

It's a well-known tendency in all working professionals to look forward to one's family and career stability as they get old, as compared to switching jobs and starting all over again.