Employee loyalty is harder and harder to come by these days. And it has been for a while. There's no such thing as working at the same place for 30-40 years and retiring with a pension anymore. So how can employers keep employees engaged and hungry for more within their current company?
You reward them. However, the rewards are no longer for longevity. No 5, 10 or 20 years of service luncheons. Since employee loyalty is no longer a motivator, with the average junior employee holding a single position for only an average of 18 months, it's time to evolve past employee loyalty.
Identifying desired behavior and rewarding execution and consistency is the new "loyalty." You can't help that careers are ever-shifting and people get restless (which is more encouraging in today's job market). So worry about what you can control. Make your employees the best they can be, and when they are, reward them for it. Use what is beyond loyalty, short term performance, to motivate your staff toward organizational goals. Employee loyalty doesn't need to be paramount to run a team full of people working well together towards a common goal. If longevity isn't in your organization's 2015 outlook, don't panic. Just find employee motivators you can control and look to performance, even short term, to reward employees for good work.
