COMPANY LOYALTY vs PERSONAL EMPOYABILITY

Against the current backdrop of a financial meltdown, the recent news about the DBS banking group axing some 900 employees, comprising mostly senior managers, were certainly disheartening.

I thought the banking group was supposed "to do the right thing".

So, I could really understand the emotional outburst from the NTUC chief.

Naturally, I could easily empathise with the anguish of all those hardworking but unfortunate people, who were chosen under the axe. Some of them apparently had long service records.

It goes to show that there is no such thing as "company loyalty" in today's labour market.

At best, & for me, I take "company loyalty" as "just doing what you are paid for by the company to do, under the mutually agreed terms of employment", but along the way, I suggest spending your time to master all the skill building, knowledge acquisition & business networking you can, while under employment.

The objective is to enhance your own personal employability & career mobility or fitness. To invest in yourself as a long term investment.

To paraphrase real estate guru Dolf de Roos:

"The most expensive piece of real estate is the six inches between your right & left ear. It’s what you create in that area that determines your wealth . . ."

Years ago, while I was still a corporate rat, I had learned very early that there wasn't any future in any job. I can't remember who had advised me.

As it stands even up to today, the future lies only in the person holding the job.

I reckon most, if not all of us, today realise that all companies are in business to make a profit.

Nothing else matters to them except profit. This is the harsh reality for all employees.

If you were still an employee today, I strongly suggest that you make sure that you are managing or running yourself like a business outfit - 'Me, Inc.' - within the company.

That's to say, make damn sure that you are making a profit as far you are concerned for the company every year. With a little bit of inventive ingenuity & interactive rapport with your accounts people, you can easily work out the cost computation.

It may be a guesstimate at best, but at least you know where you stand from the cost point of view to the company.

This is what management consultant Judith Barker calls the "earning mindset".

Throughout my entire corporate career spanning almost a quarter of a century, I had always consistently put a very high premium on self-directed learning. Sometimes, I even paid for it out of my own pocket.

In reality, all the self-education endeavours under my past employers comprised not only the requisite knowledge building of products, markets, customers & competitors, but also local & overseas management training stints (including the London Business School, UK), overseas factory visits, trade & professional affiliations.

Along the way, they also included the pursuit of my own personal interests & favourite hobbies, e.g. reading, information gathering, thinking, communicating, stress management, mind development, etc. which were closest to my heart.

From the five different employers (Swiss, German, Chinese, Swedish & Indonesian) I had sailed with, I had in fact quit my managerial jobs from two of the employers during the eighties, without first securing employment elsewhere, which reflected the supreme confidence I had in my own knowledge & strategy repertoire.

To my pleasant delight, the accumulated acumen had conveniently paved the way for me to relinquish the corporate world during the early nineties when I chose to become a small entrepreneur.

To put it in another way, my long-term investment in self-directed learning while under employment over the preceding years had eventually paid off.

As the American statesman & philosopher Benjamin Franklin once said: "An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."