Quote: Originally Posted by
Coben Majere 
I agree smart companies DO take care of their employees, but the point is, their FIRST repsonsibility is to the shareholders.
Perhaps 40 or 50 years ago, the employee/employer was loyal to each other, but in todays market it's not unusual for someone to have 6-10 jobs over their career. If I can get you out of a job where you're making $20 an hour, and hire someone new that will do the same job for $15. Guess who's getting fired! It's all around greed...mostly perpetuated by the unions.
Unions have nothing to do with the lack of any kind of loyalty. If anything, they promote loyalty (on the employee side) through collective bargaining to get the best benefits possible.
True there is a lot of job hopping now vs. how it used to be. That isn't a problem so much as downsizing/offshoring is. The only real big problem with rapid employee turnover is that no one "grows up" with the company. There really is no one that knows the ins and outs of the business and quality/customer service suffers. Again, you will see the smart companies doing things to improve employee retention.
The most important thing to know in business is that without employees you do not have a business. The importance of employees trumps the importance of shareholders.
