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Fostering “Horizontal Loyalty” among Teams

Back to blog homepage for: Strategic Employee Recognition: by Derek Irvine

Bnet recently referenced Dan Pink and the idea of changing loyalty in an organisation:

“Today’s workers tend to feel horizontal loyalty — a commitment to colleagues, former colleagues and particular projects. In short, put people on a team, and loyalties develop.”

I would agree with the truth of this. Companies have effectively destroyed any sense of loyalty many employees feel to the organisation. That can be rebuilt through effort, but wiser leaders will work to also strengthen the loyalty and commitment bonds between employees and teams.

This can be powerfully accomplished by opening the opportunity to formally appreciate others to all employees through peer-to-peer recognition. To many, acknowledgment and recognition from colleagues is even more important than from managers. It is certainly critical in building an employee's knowledge of just how important their efforts are to the group or team in getting the job done.

What do you think of the idea of horizontal loyalty? How would you support building that kind of loyalty in your organisation?

 

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Editor's Welcome

 

Hello! And welcome back as we enter 2012, with a busy year ahead of us all. With talk of double-dip recessions, a possible partial or even full break-up of the Eurozone and unemployment rates set to hit nearly 9%, topics such as organisational streamlining, staff resilience and talent management are likely to be on many an HR professional's lips over the next 12 months.
 
But to lighten the gloom here in the UK, we also have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and its attendant public holidays to look forward to at the start of June. Followed by two weeks of Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September, each generating their own excitement, but also issues to work through for hard-pressed HR departments trying to sort out the multifarious staffing issues in advance.
 
So with an interesting but challenging year to come, HRZone promises to be with you, supporting you all the way and providing our usual insightful blend of news, analysis, community blogs and expert comment to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. As ever, we love to hear from you too so feel free to either post your words of wisdom to our blog section yourself or, in the case of longer, more in-depth ‘expert voice’ articles, drop me a line with any ideas to cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk.....
 
Cath Everett
HRZone Editor 
 
 
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