I want to guage safety practitioners views on how long they stay with their present organisation or business before they move onto another Company. Also, what are most people`s view on loyalty to a company to stay in their employ in this day and age. Do people factor "the company has been good to me" into staying with that company or is it a minimal issue nowadays?

Loyalty varies - with the current economic I believe we are all more likely to be loyal as the grass is not greener on the other side! In my experience people tend to move on if their job no longer provides the job satisfaction or there are no promotional opportunities. I also have some colleagues who are loyal becuase of their pension perks, job perks and the redundancy payments they would receive if the worse came to the worse. For me - it is all on job satisfaction balance - I have not found a reason to be loyal to a company in any job that I have had

Wouldn't it be great to find a comany that treated you well enough that you wanted to be loyal to them. I would be loyal.......if I could find company that didn't treat you like the dregs in their coffee. Not found one of those yet. But then I've only worked in a H&S role for Government (enough said) and for consultancies - who generally seem to treat their consultants as a necessary evil.

Consider the loyalty of top-level footballers. With a very few notable exceptions (insert your own favourite local hero here), money talks everytime, despite fans devotion and clubs desire to retain some of the better players. If they fail to show loyalty given the enormous efforts shown by most clubs, what chance the poorly rewarded employee?

Loyalty should be a two way street or is that just naive? I worked for an american company for 20 years, helped put my daughters through university, paid off my mortgage, had some great times but worked long and hard so they got their dollar a day out of me. December 1999 I was told I would be made redundant in January 2000, lousey pay off compared to some other industries but better than government. Since then I have been made redundant twice more at about the 3 year mark, the first time small redundancy but stepped straight into a better paid job last time still living off redundancy a year later and no job on the horizon. Twice I was made redundant by people I never met in america and china to whom I was a number, my bosses had nothing to do with it except their choice my have been him or you. My advice is look after your family, in this economic climate job security is a rare commodity but make sure you research any move you are going to make so it's not out of the frying pan into the fire. IMHO you owe loyalty to yourself, your family, your friends and your company the latter two recipricated in the amount they give to you. Clairel How you doing young lady? Take Care All

I have been made redundant four times during my working career. In my experience, as another forum user has already mentioned, all you are is a number on a payroll. I carry out my duties to the best of my ability and the company pays me my salary - end of.

As others have stated above, loyalty is a double edged sword - Loyalty should come from both sides although in my experience ( private sector ) it does not. However in my working career I have had to self fund all my safety & environmental quals & IOSH Membership costs due to lack of support from past employers. So basically in my opinion there is no such thing as loyalty particuraly in the private sector where I have accrued my experience. The way I looked at it was experience to get to the next stepping stone of the H & S Ladder nothing more than that. However whenever I have to self fund quals or membership fees through lack of support, then it is auf wiederson to that employer. I don't hang around or give that employer a second thought. Some employers maybe different from others, but at the end of the day it is a numbers game. Employees are only treated as a number in my experience and are treated ruthelessly by employers. If you are faced with that level of ruthlessness, then reciprocate that back to the employer by job hunting and getting the next job with minimum explanation on why you are leaving. Rant over. John.

I read recently in a personnel magazine that most people change their jobs after about three years. To me this looks like quite a good idea. Year one will be fresh and interesting as you start to develop your new role, responsibilities and knowledge Year two is when you are fully confident/ competent and enjoying the challenge of your, still relatively new role year three is when you start to fall into the 'this is the same as last year .... and possibly the future' train of thought Surely it is better for everyone to have employees that are keen, constantly learning and positive within the workplace, rather than people stale in their roles. Also good employers that see the benefits of investing in their staff (training etc) can make stage 2 last much longer as you are constantly challenged and learning. Just a thought!! keith