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Loyalty in a harassment document?

By The Admiral ·
It never ceases to amaze me at the divirsity of people who are in IT, as well as the diverse amount of silly additions to a non-descriminatory policy a company has.

One just passed by my desk this morning and in it it had race, creed, color, etc, but there was one thing that puzzled me that I had to call the contracting companies HR on. This one was company loyalty. After I got done laughing at it, and once called their HR, they said that because of the high turnover they put that in there because they have a problem with company loyalty.

Which stumped me even further, since this company is much like an escort service setup where they have a client that needs the service and they send the appropriate person to fill the job, and they pay the person to perform the services. But if they do not treat their people right, the employees go to other escort services. The same is true to a degree with temporary companies. But this disturbed me.

How can employee loyalty to the company be considered a point of harassment? I have seen many of the companies treat their people like cattle, cutting their pay, reducing their benefits, replacing a good worker who may be overpaid for an incompetent one at a reduced payscale, but this stumps me to the fullest.

Which leads me to question ? should loyalty be part of any kind of harassment doctrine?

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Non existent

by JamesRL In reply to Loyalty in a harassment d ...

When I took a Xerox sales training course in the 80s, I learned a fundamental lesson. A deal is only a good deal if it benefits both parties; not necessarily equally, but both parties must receive some benefit.

Any deal between a contracting company and their employee is a transactional one at best - if they don't promise to be loyal to you and work hard to keep you employed(and they don't), then what loyalty do you owe them? In my opinion none.

I may be jaded, as I got a raw deal from one such company a few years back. I was working for a major bank who was happy with my work and even inquired about hiring me full time. I was coming up to an extension when we had a meeting. It seems the contractors had failed to apply in time to be on the bank's preferred vendors list. The bank was unhappy about the situation, and in the meeting between myself, my project manager(from the Bank), the HR manager (from the bank) and the head of the office of the agency, the head of the agency promised that she would make up for it by working hard to find me something.

Needless to say once I left the bank, she didn't try at all to find me anything. I normally only trust myself to do my own job searches, but I expect people who make me promises to deliver.

You earn loyalty, not demand it.

James

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Thanks

by amcol In reply to Non existent

For the trip down memory lane. I took the same Xerox course myself at about that time...PSS, Professional Selling Skills. Still should be required training for anyone in either sales or management, or anyone who aspires to either.

To your story...I understand how you feel, and I'm not defending anyone's actions, but I see another side to this. You were loyal to the bank and the contractor and it sounds like (at least) to whatever extent they were loyal to you, at least for a while. However, loyalty aside, the contractor's business judgment may have been that their relationship with the bank superceded their relationship with and responsibility to you, and that's why your agency head didn't follow through on her promise. She may have held out hope that she could have resuscitated her relationship with the bank and helping you in some fashion would have hindered that. Or, in trying to rescue that relationship coupled with everything else on her plate she may not have had the capacity to keep her word. Either way it sucks, I know.

To the original question in the thread...no, I've never heard of company loyalty being a component of a corporate harrassment policy (is it HAR-rass-ment or har-RASS-ment, BTW?) Not only does this sound like a unique situation, and I'm no expert on this, but I highly doubt there's a legal leg to stand on here, which is typically why harrassment policies are promulgated to begin with. It does say something, IMHO, about this organization's culture...restrictive, controlling, and unrealistic. Not a great workplace combination.

The plain practical fact of the matter is that the whole issue of corporate loyalty no longer exists. It met its demise when the implied lifetime employment contract between employer and employee ceased, starting about 20 years ago. This cultural phenomenon was actually anticipated by IT...technical people have always characteristically been industry loyal and employer disloyal. We believe we're IT people and not company people. Perhaps it's all our fault, after all.

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The recuiter and the bank part II

by JamesRL In reply to Thanks

I understand your perspective.

The recruiter, having not done the work required to make it onto the preferred vendors list, could not do any business with the bank for a whole year. So the relationship between the recruiter and the bank was already gone. The reason the HR person was there with us, is that they had wanted to keep me on. But I could not be placed by the recruiters - the bank could not pay them a commission. If they had cared to keep the relationship, they could have released me to apply to the bank directly, but my contract stated I couldn't apply directly to the bank for a year after my work with the recruiter ends, and they were not inclined to release me. So catch 22. If they had any loyalty to me, they would have seen it as a good will gesture, let me go, and try and get back on the list for the next year. But instead they left the bank feeling angry, and me jobless.

James

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I had a feeling...

by amcol In reply to The recuiter and the bank ...

...that there was a non-compete clause somewhere in that story.

You got screwed, twice. First by the agency head who made a promise on which she couldn't deliver...she said she'd help you find something knowing she was constrained by your contract. Second by your own contract, in that non-competes are traditionally virtually impossible to enforce but no one was willing to go to the mat for you. I understand your feelings...been there myself.

What's that they say about experience being the best teacher? Sometimes I wish I wasn't so experienced, know what I mean?

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She wasn't constrained

by JamesRL In reply to I had a feeling...

in finding me a job with another company - like another bank her company did business with for example. It wasn't a non-compete per se, but a directive that I can't do an end run around the agency. I can't finish a contract with the agency and go direct to the bank - the agency retains a cut for 12 months after the contract ends. But the catch 22 is that the bank can't pay any finders fee to an agency not on their approved list. The right thing to do would have been to cut me loose.

I had a few other agencies tell me they had great jobs for me at that bank - I told them about the clause and they said they could get around it - but they never were successful.

James

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by The Admiral In reply to The recuiter and the bank ...

In your case, a possible win-win was a loose-loose due to either stupidity, arrogance, or bullheadedness on the behalf of the escort service.

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