Amidst These Times of Strife, Loyalty Must Emerge

When it came to the employment mind set, things were different in the days of our parents and grandparents.

A person was more than proud to see themselves as a nameless soldier amongst an army of worker bees toiling for some well-known affair. The monikers IBM, HP, and Microsoft come to mind. Of the newer ones, we now have Google and Microsoft.

However, the nature of the job market has changed in recent years in terms of how one defines "loyalty" and where one puts it.

The Way Things Are Becoming Now

As many know, layoffs have become more rampant. The jobs aren't simply on hold until the economy recovers - whenever that happens. Some say the jobs won't be back in the foreseeable future.

For those employers that do need to retain workers on a somewhat consistent basis, they seek to reduce their risks on the chance of further downturn. A rising number of them are taking on employees under the auspices of full-time work in the conventional sense - but job out the legal aspects of employment to an employment contracting firm. One works under one roof, but the paycheck gets cut under another roof. When time comes to be disciplined, fired, or laid off, the contract company has their "employment specialist" do the dirty work. While eagerly bringing employees on to meet their needs for the moment, employers just as easily cast workers aside like so much chattel when they're not needed.

This is the way things are becoming now.

As time goes on, the ugly truth about our world economy becomes progressively more evident. The time approaches when we'll have to say: enough is enough.

Enough is Enough. What's Left That Works?

In the face of this, what's left for us? What other than something that works? And how could that something be anything other than personal loyalty?

We've seen loyalty emerge in its more primitive forms in "special interest groups" on the internet. Yahoo Groups, Facebook, and MySpace all justify their existence upon those who need for relationships, even with people whom they've not met.

We've seen loyalty show up on an individual level as people focus more and more on personal reputation and "personal branding" with individuals marked by a unique yet readily apparent work value. As testament to this, we see a small boom of personal branding consulting firms sprouting up.

While personal branding on an individual level does have merits of its own, a far-reaching dynamic needs to be recognized. One that engenders loyalty not only to oneself, but among others too.

Loyalty Emerging

As a globally networked technology becomes more ubiquitous, this connectivity is also seen as something to be less trusted. Facebook has recently lost some of its credibility due to application security issues. Unscrupulous characters hack online databases to steal credit card and other personal information. The rising transparency of personally unique online information lead to identity theft. World governments vie to track the movements of individuals with network-connected cameras and RFID chips broadcasting one's presence.

For a recent generations weaned to work a mouse with one hand and a keyboard under the other, there will soon come a time when we will have to shut off the power switch and step outside to a new and more workable reality.

Loyalty Fostered By Relationships

The new practical reality may very well be an extension of the social network idea, but in a very new and different form. At the least a "reality check" will be provided by the high stakes game of personal survival in a crumbling world economy and the loss of blind faith in what once held sway. Given what's happening outside there, it will have to be a reality based upon powerful relationships. Relationships founded upon loyalty.

To make things happen, one will have to become loyal not only to oneself (as with personal branding) but also to a network comprised of family, friends, and trusted colleagues - a growingly self-sufficient unit that agrees to support its members. An extended family, if you will.

Unlike the close-knit networks of yester generations, the new network of loyalty would have to encompass a family of a kind never seen before.

Leveraging Loyalty For Work

Foremost on many people's minds is the practical issues of income, survivability, and access to a personally meaningful and transformative life. Not the center of - but essential to - all this is having work.

In a the absence of larger employers now no longer willing nor able to offer stability and loyalty - or at least an acceptable appearance of one - to the individual worker, what left other than to turn to one's loyalty network for employment?

In the midst of all this flux, it's difficult to say how loyalty will factor in, and how it will make itself manifest. The loyalty one will need to survive will be of a kind never seen before, but will nevertheless play importantly in the success of this newly emerging endeavor of life, work, and one's very own life work.