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The Loyalty Effect:
Commitment Increases With Age
By John Paul Marosy, President
Bringing Elder Care Home LLC
jpmarosy@charter.net
(508) 854-0431
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"Motivated employees stay with the company longer and get to know their customers better yet - which leads to still better service, builds greater customer satisfaction and further improves the relationship and the company's results." Frederick F. Reichheld in The Loyalty Effect: |
In his 1996 book The Loyalty Effect (quoted above), Frederick Reichheld
presented data to show that companies that nurtured loyalty among employees
enjoyed higher-than-average customer satisfaction and higher-than-average
profits than their counterparts in the same industries that did not engender
employee loyalty.
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Now, newly-released data, developed by WFD Consulting, shows
that employee commitment is positively correlated with age.
To explore the significance of the WFD findings, I recently interviewed WFD's Jan Civian, Senior Consultant. The information presented below is based on that interview and the content of a 2003 presentation at the annual conference of the Alliance for Work Life Progress entitled "Looking at Life Cycle Issues at the Workplace."
WFD developed the Employee Commitment Index in 1995 and
validated it against other existing measures. The index includes several
components, including both affective measures (e.g. loyalty), and discretionary
effort items (e.g., work ethic).
"It's a measure that captures, basically, how attached your employees
are and how willing they are to work very hard for the company," say Civian.
"We use it as a proxy for productivity because it has the discretionary
effort items. It captures retention well because it is also highly correlated
with employees' intention to stay with the company."
The index is used to understand what's related to achieving better commitment and employee retention. "Employers would want to maximize employee commitment," says Civian, "because of the service profit chain relationship: committed employees lead to satisfied customers and higher profits for the company."
"One of the strongest predictors that we have found to be associated with employee commitment is support of work-life issues," says Civian. "When people feel that their company is helpful and supportive in the management of work/life responsibilities, employees tend to have higher commitment."
Commitment Correlates with Age
The WFD analysis and findings are based on a survey sample of about 22,000 U.S.-based employees from Fortune 500 companies representing several different industries. Among the key findings:
- Almost one in four employees 55 years of age or older care for an elderly relative or adult dependent.
- Employees between 35-54 years old are most likely to be in the "sandwich" position, i.e., raising a child and caring for an elderly relative at the same time, with about 6% of employees in this age group facing this dual responsibility.
- Looking at all employees, commitment is positively correlated with age.
- Employees 55 years and older have the highest commitment score compared to all other age groups
- Older employees tend to report higher feelings of company supportiveness than do younger employees, with those over 55 the most likely to feel supported.
- There is a strong correlation between feeling supported by the company and feeling committed to the company.
Why Are Older Workers More Committed?
I asked Civian to speculate as to why this correlation exists between commitment and age. She suggested that there could be a number of factors, for example:
- Since older workers are more likely to have been with the company for a longer period of time, there is likely a good "fit" for the employee.
- It could also be that, as you get older, perhaps you become more satisfied with the path your life has taken. With children grown, the older employee can devote more time to his or her job - and feel better about the relationship because the employee can focus on it more. He or she may feel more satisfaction because of not being torn in so many directions.
What's the bottom line? Civian says "We're seeing that older employees feel truly supported by their companies. A big part of this is the supportiveness of their managers and the flexibility that employees are given to manage the multiple responsibilities they have a home and at work."
As for the future, Civian points out that the survey showed that about 26% expect to take on elder care responsibilities within next 3-4 years - yet another indicator that the elder care/work balance challenge will grow in the years ahead.
For
more information on the Employee Commitment Index, contact WFD's Judith
Presser at judith.presser@wfd.com.
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Radio
Interview! Listen through your computer to John Paul, Saturday, April 3, at 7:40 p.m. EST (show segment #6) on Jacqueline Marcell's Internet radio program "Coping with Caregiving" heard worldwide on http://www.wsradio.com/copingwithcaregiving (Click on the Green Button). The discussion will explore Communicating Effectively with Healthcare Professionals, a program that John Paul directs for the National Family Caregivers Association. If you miss the live broadcast, the interview will be archived by Monday afternoon, April 5 for 24/7 listening-on-demand in the "Recent Archives". Listen via Windows Media Player, a free download available at the top left of the website. Jacqueline is the author of, "Elder Rage, or Take My Father… Please! How to Survive Caring for Aging Parents." http://www.elderrage.com |
John Paul Marosy
Editor and President,
Bringing Elder Care Home, LLC
John Paul Marosy is the author of Elder Care: A Six Step Guide to Balancing Work and Family, available from Bringing Elder Care Home Publishing online at www.bringingeldercarehome.com or by calling 508-854-0431.
Visit www.bringingeldercarehome.com or call or email today to learn how your organization can offer this effective resource: (508) 854-0431 or jpmarosy@bringingeldercarehome.com
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