In recent days we have witnessed a media parade of socialist politicians openly criticizing their party's strategy. Voices such as those of Felipe González, Alfonso Guerra or Rodríguez Ibarra have risen strongly to make clear their position against negotiating the amnesty with the independentists, thus distancing themselves from the plan that Pedro Sánchez has drawn up to try to repeat as president of the Spanish government.
In this context, it is worth remembering another socialist politician, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, who died in 2019 after a long career of public service, with milestones as important as the end of ETA or the drastic reduction in road deaths. Among his many intellectual contributions, Rubalcaba was always a firm defender of the principle of loyalty, with phrases as forceful as: “Being loyal does not mean not telling your boss what you have to say. Being loyal means that, when the organization has made a decision, everyone must work together and in the same direction.”
To illustrate this, Rubalcaba used the story of a well-known Spanish footballer, who decided to leave his team the day they put him on the bench and realized that he no longer cared who won the game. “If you stop identifying with the success of your organization, or even intimately wish for its failure, the time has come to rethink your professional future,” said the former minister.
Loyalty in the workplace is a reciprocal reality, since the workers who are most committed to their company are those who, at the same time, perceive a clear commitment from the organization towards them. In addition, the benefit of loyalty is also bidirectional, since several studies show that it not only favors collective performance, but also increases the possibilities of promotion and individual growth.
The problem, as Professor Matthew Bidwell's research shows, is that the relationship between companies and workers is rapidly weakening. “There is less commitment because there is no longer the feeling that the company is going to take care of you like in the past. This causes loyalty to be directed more toward the profession that the organization did,” says the academic.
In fact, according to data from the Talent trends 2023 report, prepared by the consulting firm Michael Page, 55% of Spanish workers are actively looking for a new job. However, the same study identifies the three variables that have the most impact on talent loyalty: flexibility, salary and professional career. Therefore, organizations that seek the commitment of their people would do well to evaluate and strengthen these pillars.
Likewise, it is important to create effective spaces for participation and debate, where opinions can be exchanged and ideas contrasted. Because loyalty is also achieved through active listening and consensus, preventing employees from having to look for alternative (and rarely constructive) channels to express their disagreement.
Professor Bidwell assures that organizational loyalty is a concept that is becoming obsolete. And you're probably right. But if the alternative is to generalize the “lose-lose” dynamics, in which an amalgamation of individual interests ends up penalizing joint progress, perhaps we should recover some reflections from Alfredo Pérez-Rubalcaba.
