You don’t have to buy my loyalty

…but you might have to pay a little for it.

After a tumultuous few months due to being laid off and living in an area with no real work in my field, I have some time to reflect back on a very important point when it comes to employers.

Loyalty isn’t something you can buy, but it also isn’t free.

I got laid off from a remote job while I was in Florida. Long story short that lead to me moving my family to Oklahoma where I had a little support. There were just no good Web Developer jobs in our area in Florida and I couldn’t land another remote job fast enough and I had to make the call to move near family for a little support. Once in Oklahoma, I found a job to hold me over.

I didn’t take the job to treat it like it was temporary. I was ready to make this a long haul relationship, even though the pay was about 1/3 of what I was working for previously, and even though I had to drive 1.5 hours each direction every day. I was going to make it work, and eventually move closer. I even felt bad thinking that some of the jobs I had previously applied for (remote) would come back to my door and I would have to leave the job —I felt committed to them.

Now, 2 months later, I’m looking for another job, have one lined up, and will likely be moving in less than 2 weeks to Austin, TX. The reason?

If you don’t invest in your employees, they wont invest in you.

I was invested in the beginning. I would have turned down a higher paying job to stay with these guys. But the longer I worked, the more I realized that they made literally zero investment in me. In less than a week, at the rate they were charging for my seat time, they would have paid off the computer they bought for me to work on — and that was the only real cost to them for me coming to work for them. They charge about 6 times what they pay me for my time. In a more mature shop, where there are benefits and demonstrable investments in the employees, that’s not an issue.

That does, however, become an issue when I have no benefits. No PTO, no sick days, 4-5 holidays paid a year, no health or like benefits. I don’t even get paid 8 hours, I get paid per minute of work pretty much. I’m basically a contractor at less than a 1/3 of my contracting rate, and on top of it, I have to be in office to work.

My loyalty isn’t bought or sold. It is, however, tied to how much a company invests in me. Benefits, life/work balance, salary (not the number, but literally just being salary and not hourly) and genuine, demonstrable caring about employees is what does it. Those things do cost money, but that’s not the point. Show me that you care about me, and not just that you care about a butt in the chair producing code, and you have my loyalty.

Invest in me, and I’ll return in kind.