Your manager greets you with enthusiasm and welcomes you to “the family”Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, has written a book about the “fundamental disconnect” of modern employment. In the book, entitled The Alliance, Hofmann claims the “The employer-employee relationship is broken.”
Imagine it’s your first day at a new company.
Your manager greets you with enthusiasm and welcomes you to “the family”.
He says he hopes you’ll be with the company for many years to come. You in return express your diehard loyalty to your new firm.
But then he sends you to the HR department, where you learn about a 90-day probation period, and even after the initial 90-days you are classed as an “at will” employee that can be fired at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all.
“You just experienced the fundamental DISCONNECT of modern employment,” Hoffman says.
“Companies expect employee loyalty WITHOUT committing job security or professional development,” Hoffman advises.
Co-authored by Reid Hoffman, founder/chairman of LinkedIn, The Alliance teaches managers how to recruit, manage, and retain the entrepreneurial employees your business needs to succeed in the networked age.
The employer-employee relationship is based on a dishonest conversation, according to Mr Hoffman, that results in employers continually losing valuable people, while employees fail to fully invest in their job because they are looking for better opportunities.
The solution: Stop thinking of employees as family or free agents, and start thinking of them as allies on a tour of duty.
But this win-win scenario will happen only if both sides trust each other enough to commit to mutual investment and mutual benefit.
Sadly, trust in the business world is hovering at an all-time low. We can rebuild that lost trust with straight talk that recognises the realities of the modern economy.
So, paradoxically, the alliance begins with managers acknowledging that great employees might leave the company, and with employees being honest about their own career aspirations.
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