Steve Siebold once said:
“The great managers and leaders of the future will know more about their people than ever before. They''ll know their emotional hot buttons as well as the essence of what makes them tick. Through facilitated introspection, these leaders will create a competitive immunity for their companies by reigniting the flame of loyalty that burns within their people.”
Moreover, Herb Kelleher, CEO, Southwest Airlines famously states
An organization bound by love is more powerful than one bound by fear.
So what drives employee loyalty in business and how loyal is the workforce in the Middle East today? With the economies across the Middle East either booming or improving, and more opportunities opening up, the temptation for employees to transition to new opportunities could become strong. What safety nets do organizations have in place to prevent workers from straying? Keeping the lines of communication open and promoting a culture of mutual respect and loyalty could be the glue that reduces turnover and helps keeps the workforce in place.
According to the last HR Research Study Employee Loyalty in the Middle East, conducted by the Middle East’s #1 job site and leading HR consultancy Bayt.com in conjunction with YouGovSiraj in March 2008, employee loyalty is closely tied to employee satisfaction and overall where employee satisfaction is high so is loyalty. Another key finding from this survey reveals employee happiness has a direct impact on loyalty and productivity, job turnover and economic growth for businesses. Of those who are satisfied with their current employers, 93% feel fully engaged in their work and 92% feel motivated to perform well. Teamwork, effective communication & interaction with the line manager scored high in terms of satisfaction levels across the region. However rewards, training opportunities and career development opportunities scored lower with the incidence of dissatisfaction almost as high as the incidence of satisfaction in these categories. Overall, 80% of employees across the region indicated I feel fully engaged in what I do with 76% indicating I feel committed to the organisation for which I currently work, 74% indicating I feel motivated to perform well in the work I do and 74% agreeing I would speak highly to people outside the organisation about my organisations products/services/brands. What came out very strongly in the HR survey is that an employee’s satisfaction and loyalty to their work and organization are very closely tied to various factors including perceptions of the management, training and recognition, performance measurement, team work and working environment to name a few. These in turn strongly impact retention, the stability of the organisational environment and the stability, productivity and welfare of the economy as a whole. Given this, employers should try to work towards greater levels of satisfaction and loyalty by working on each of these individual factors. Given a good working environment and enough career development and enhancement opportunities, this survey as well as extensive previous polling exercises run on the Bayt.com website indicate that employees may not necessarily be looking for a company that pays them top dollar in order to stay and maintain lucrative loyalty levels.
