Matt Ryder, who has hired over 700 employees, argues that employee loyalty is a myth and workers are replaceable gears. He denies bonuses to underperformers and says people should chase better pay without guilt. He'd rehire strong people who quit, but expects no one to stay out of loyalty.
Over the past 7 years, I've had the incredible displeasure of hiring over 700 employees, and this is the lessons that I've taken away. One, loyalty is not a real thing when it comes to business. Everyone says that it is, but it's really not because if you're offered more money to go work somewhere else and they won't match it, you should probably take it. So there's your loyalty gone. If you're not doing like over and above or everything that you should be doing, you should be fired immediately. So there's the loyalty. Gone. A good example of this was my team missed their bonus by a small amount and everyone was like, oh, let's give them the bonus.
They were so close. They tried so hard. And I was like, no, fuck you.
And everyone was like, oh, you're mean. I was like, okay, cool. Let's say we give them the bonus, but employees are gears. As human beings, they're valuable. There's no doubt about it. There's no hierarchy in terms of the value of the human beings inside the business, but there is a hierarchy in terms of the value in which they give. That's how it all works. And so gears are replaceable. Every single employee is replaceable. I am replaceable. You are replaceable. Everybody is replaceable. And so if somebody wants to quit, fine, If somebody wants to come back hired, fine. Now, if somebody quits, I'll always let them come back as long as they were good. But if an employee comes to me and is like, I'm going to get offered more money over here, I'll be like, I mean, all right, cool. If they're extremely valuable, I will then try and offer more money. But at the end of the day, they should do what's best for them and their family because that whole like loyalty, tribalism bullshit in staff and employees is just complete rubbish.
