Is Loyalty a thing of the past?

As part of my work, I deal a lot with Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies. For them building and maintaining Brand Loyalty is very important. Most of us might be using a particular brand soap or household item for years because it was used by our parents or introduced to us by someone we trust. 

I used to cross a TCS office on the way to school and I remember by mother telling me that TATA is a trusted company who have now got into something to do with computers and the people coming out of this office seem to be very smart. Maybe this is one reason I have continued with the same company for 27 + years!

Today the world is so competitive that we check prices across apps and across brands, look at ratings for the products and go for whichever is cheap and best! This is true for work life as well.

Almost 10 years back one of my friends told me that one should not stick to the same company for more than 3 to 4 years! I laughed at him at that point but what he said seems to be really true. These days I see many people shifting jobs every 3 to 4 years and I also see that many of them are doing well in terms of the remuneration, roles and opportunities they get.

There are of course few advantages of being loyal to one company like building a track record and the corresponding respect one gets. However loyalty can also be a burden because you get used to one particular way of working and can sometimes get stuck in a role. Moving organisations frequently might be difficult and does not give a sense of belonging definitely helps you keep in touch with the latest and also helps you adapt to different organisation cultures and ways of working.

As someone who has been with the same company for a long time, my view is that while Loyalty might not be totally bad, I feel people should keep checking how the outside world is and benchmark to ensure that their loyalty is being rewarded properly!