What happened to the loyalty in the work place?

What is the average time an employee spends with his/her company before moving on to another company? I don’t really have any solid figures or statistics that I can refer to, but gone are the days when an employee would spend his or her entire years of service with one company.

What really inspired me to write this article as my own personal experience with working as an independent contractor/consultant. I have been on my own for over five years now moving from contract to contract and from country to country, although this work experience gave me a great deal of freedom and flexibility, it brought with it a sense of loneliness and lack of security.

Outsourcing started many years ago, large corporations, wanting to cut costs, started to sub-contract jobs to independent consultants; I personally worked on many of these contracts. Is the fierce competition that driving many companies to constantly reorganize their work force leading to the mistrust between workers and employers? Or it’s the constant peruse for better jobs and better working and living conditions that driving workers to always look out of the windows for better opportunities?

The ease of communications, especially with the rapid spread of the internet, made it easier for people to meet and for employers and job seekers to find each other. Replacing an employee or an employer is more frequent that it used to be, I know my father only had two different employers in his entire career, but I have changed my employer more than five times before I reach the age of 35.

In these days, as managers, how can we keep our best talents from seeking new employer? How long can we manage before having to lay off workers? Can we restore the trust between workers and employers? I personally think that with today’s fierce business competitions and real savvy work force, loyalty and job security will be constantly changing; workers will be loyal to their work place till they find the next better position and employers will offer job security as long as they don’t have to cut costs.