WHEN I was a young supervisor many moons ago, it pained me whenever one of my subordinates threw in his resignation letter.
All I could think about was the wasted years spent training the person - and who was on track to becoming a better journalist before some other passion or better-paying job came along.
Over the past few years, however, I have become ambivalent about staff turnover, so much so that I appear somewhat heartless at not showing some heartbreak when people quit.
There are two things a boss cannot fight: love and God. People get married and want a slower pace of life or they move abroad to be with their spouse. You can't blame them.
Or they decide to become pastors or full-time church workers and do missionary work in Indochina. You can't blame God either.
Then there are those who go for a myriad of reasons, including money.
Not many of us expect to stay in the same job or at the same company forever. The conventional wisdom is three career changes in a working lifetime.
You quit after five years or so in one job before you get 'golden handcuffed'' to your desk and become too expensive for anyone else to hire, and later, when it looks like a young punk is about to replace you.
Then you read about how tight the labour market is, so much so that some lucky people can change three or four jobs in a year, and move up the money rungs each time.
And you wonder if you are being silly for staying on in your job.
Did these lucky fellows do right or wrong by jumping to the next boat which offers a more comfortable cruise? This is job mobility after all. If you are in demand, you move to the highest bidder.
How do you argue against market forces?
I know some employers would cite career development prospects or quickly up salaries to beat the market.
Some pull at heart-strings, referring to friendships that have been forged at work or resorting to the old lie that the quitter is simply indispensable to the corporation.
Last but not least, they bring up the L issue - loyalty.
These tactics, especially the L word, no longer work for this generation of workers in a seller's market.
It would be no surprise if the winners of the retail superstar awards move to another job soon, despite labour chief Lim Swee Say's pleas not to 'job hop''.
Is it wrong to job hop for a 20 per cent increase in salary? Too little, some would say. What about a doubling of salary?
I wish Mr Lim would expand a little on what he meant by the short-sightedness of job hopping and poaching.
Why would the pursuit of retail excellence suffer if people change jobs?
The prospect of being offered higher salaries might well induce service staff to work harder in the hope that one day they will get that phone call to move to a better-paying place.
Then service staff will gradually find a raising of salaries all round, within their own company and without.
There is of course the old warning that the grass is not always greener on the other side. But you can always stay a year, collect your bonus and quit.
As for that lament about contract work which leaves out fringe benefits, well, it makes it easier for workers to quit too - and jump to another contract job.
So how should salaried workers view the red-hot market and its enticements?
And what has happened to this word called loyalty? In this day and age, it seems to be an old-fashioned notion at odds with aspirations to make more money and do better in life. Some people actually scoff at the notion that people stay in a job, or even in a country, because of loyalty or a sense of obligation and duty.
In fact, we are in a bit of a bind. Because employers don't expect staff to stay long anyway, they pay little attention to doing stuff that will encourage them to stay.
The L word can be thrown back in the employers' teeth if one considers how easy it is to cut pay, benefits and terminate employment when the economy is down. Loyalty cuts both ways.
Employers often neglect this aspect of the work environment, cutting down on staff welfare for example, to meet some bottom-line target. People must feel attached to a cause and covered by company care - or at least have a boss who has a bigger vision than the next quota to be met.
Mr Kalaichellvan Krishna of Jack's Place steakhouse chain is refusing job offers because he thinks of the patrons who frequent his restaurant. Good for him.
Ms Liza Coelho must feel quite chuffed that customers forsake stores in town to go to her Dorothy Perkins' outlet in Parkway Parade. Perhaps, they are the reason she will stay on too.
They are loyal to the customers, and hence loyal to their companies. They see their jobs as bigger than a pay cheque.
So how will their loyalty be rewarded? A bigger pay cheque would be nice. That's because there is one problem with loyalty - it is sometimes taken for granted.
Dig a little deeper and you will find that people do not always leave for material inducements. They leave because there is nothing to make them stay. And because the L word is no longer in fashion.
bertha@sph.com.sg
Logic and loyalty
Some people actually scoff at the notion that people stay in a job, or even in a country, because of loyalty or a sense of obligation and duty.
In fact, we are in a bit of a bind. Because employers don't expect staff to stay long anyway, they pay little attention to doing stuff that will encourage them to stay.
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