There’s a lot of discussion going on right now about the idea of loyalty.  Gen Y critics view Gen Y’s job hopping as a sign of disloyalty, while many members of Gen Y respond that job hopping isn’t a sign of loyalty so much as it’s representative of the corporate culture we’ve grown up with.

It’s not unexpected that job hopping would raise a lot of ire in the professional world.  It’s a relatively new phenomenon and it causes all sorts of problems for companies and HR departments.  When entry level employees keep leaving relatively soon after starting with the company, the vacuum left behind is understandably annoying to employers.

So, why do we job hop?  There are differing schools of thought on this.  Nadira Hira of Fortune Magazine believes that growing up with so much global instability, where dramatic changes are a part of life, has given Gen Y a worldview that acknowledges that life is fleeting and it’s unwise to wait to live it.  Also, watching our parents and grandparents deal with economic upheaval, losing their jobs at the companies they’ve worked at for years because of economic downturns, has fostered an innate distrust of the corporate entity.

Beth Harris with Brazen Careerist wrote a post about Gen Y employees just not buying into the idea that companies care about their employees.  Gen Y has grown up with an intimate knowledge of capitalism and with this knowledge comes the understanding that employees are disposable assets to companies.  Companies are interested in their bottom lines, and they will hire and fire at will to maintain their profit margins.  Gen Y changes jobs frequently, and is disloyal to companies, because they know that their loyalty would never be reciprocated anyway.

For the most part, I agree with both of these views.  If companies no longer view employees as human beings, then employees should have no reason to be loyal to them.  In fact, loyalty becomes a bit of a liability in a business model where employees are merely a means to an end.  If you’re loyal to a company and it goes under and you’re laid off, what has that loyalty earned you?  If you understand that your company isn’t doing well and jump ship to another company before you get laid off, however, you haven’t done anything your employer wouldn’t have done to you anyway and you still have a job.

Even if your company isn’t going under, job hopping makes sense professionally.  Companies are doing more and more external hiring, effectively relegating entry-level employees to the same status for years if necessary.  If an opportunity opens up and a Gen Y employee has the chance to take a new job that will present new challenges and a bigger paycheck, what has the old employer offered that will entice that employee to stay?  In that case, loyalty will only give you the chance to do the same thing for years on end with no chance of a promotion and only the hope of a raise.

Having come from an HR perspective, I fully understand that job hopping causes a headache for employers.  I would argue, however, that company loyalty causes just as many headaches for Gen Y employees.  Since companies no longer feel any obligation to take care of their employees, employees should have complete freedom to take care of themselves.

Where do you stand on the job hopping issue?  Do you practice this or are you loyal to your company?  Do you feel that your job hopping/loyalty has been rewarded?