EmploymentLongevity #WorkplaceSatisfaction #ChangeManagement
I’ve been thinking a lot about long-term employment lately 🤔 For those of you who’ve been with the same employer for more than 5 years, how do you do it? I mean, doesn’t the thought of doing the same thing day in and day out for years on end make you want to run for the hills?
Here are a few thoughts and possible solutions that might help us all navigate the murky waters of long-term employment:
- Mindset shift: Perhaps those who stay at one place for a long time don’t expect much more than a paycheck from their job. 🤷♂️
- Seek out challenges: If you’re feeling stagnant, maybe it’s time to seek out new projects or responsibilities within your current role. 💪
- Communicate effectively: If you have ideas for change, make sure you’re presenting them in a way that resonates with decision-makers. 🗣️
- Professional development: Invest in your own growth by taking courses or attending workshops to keep things fresh. 📚
Any other tips or tricks for staying in one place for the long haul? Let’s share our insights and strategies!
I’ve done it before.
They compensated me at a level I was pleased with and I returned value at a level they were pleased with. I was given new and interesting challenges and an evident growth path.
I was also able to set aside the idea that my work had an outsized impact on the organization and that change was something that would happen. Until your name is on the door or has some letters in front of it that start with a “C,” you’re just along for the ride. You make a difference where you can, lead your team, and stops worrying about the rest.
a lot of the people in my current company have been here for a long time. 10-20 years from what I can tell. I haven’t reached a year yet but the guy who hired/trained me said he expects me to be here 20 years just like him, this was his first job and only job.
a lot of the people here always say “this generation needs to understand company loyalty” and “this generation doesn’t have the work ethic.”
I think they actually like what they do and have no need for change, you either settle or keep reaching and they all settled.
those are rockie numbers.
I am working since 2013.
Longest empoyement was 3,5 years. ( but to be fair i wanted to stay longer there. it ended because of covid)
I switched jobs many times before and this is what I realized, companies are all the same. There is a level of bureacracy that it needs to climb before it can change something and change is hard to come by unless you force their hand. I’ll give you an example, last 2021 I think, during the great resignation, almost everyone in the department quit their jobs. We’ve been asking for raise and changes before that to no avail until everyone left. The management now started to call back some of them, asking what they want so they can come back.
Bottomline is, to me, I’ve settled with a company that is good in terms of compensation, benefits, culture, and work life balance. There will be no perfect employer but this is what allowed me to just stick with it.
Been looking for jobs 3/4 years, but market is shit. With kids it feels safe to stay
But yeah the people annoy the fuck outta me, leadership sucks, bonuses get zeroed because we’re only hitting XX million and not XY million, no pension or retirement matching. Just stuck which makes the motivation worse haha, but it pays rent
The longer you stay, the harder it is to find something knew. You become and are considered stagnant from the outside. Accepting counter offers can hurt your career in the long run.
edit: Also the culture shock of a new team/environment gets more intense the longer you stay in one spot.
You will make more money than me.
I’m 32, I’ve been with my employer for all of my career basically (about 13 years). You get comfortable with the status quo. People know you, you get a reputation. You become a SME. I get to wfh full time and have since pre pandemic. If I was still commuting I’d like to think I would have left by now.
At this point though I regret it quite a bit, I wish I’d been more ambitious and done different things and gotten additional experience (I’m young, I know it isn’t the end for me but still). Basically – my current position was great when I first started it in 2015. I was happy with the pay and the work. I’m really good at my job (like, really good) to the point where I feel like it is affecting my ability to move in the company. All the feedback both internally and from clients is that I’m great, a necessity, etc etc but none of it ever results in promotion or an expanded role. But now the work is boring, I have a hard time caring, I’m so jaded that little things really frustrate me. The corporate speak is grating. Listening to the same bullshit about ‘career development’ and ’employee experience’ year after year when I know so many people like myself who want to do more but get no support when trying to branch out.
Anyway I’m about 400 applications deep over the last year trying to find something new, which makes me thankful to have the job even if I dislike it so much. I’ve had several last round interviews, more ghosting than I can count and a whole lot of silence. I’m still trying to get out, I don’t know if it’s me or the ‘market’ but it seems really bad. I used to get cold calls from recruiters when I was happily off the market and even those don’t come in anymore.
So yeah more than you asked for by also it’s cathartic to write it down.
I worked at one company where there were a bunch of people with 20-30 years with the same company. But very few people who started in 2010 or later. Turns out that the people who had been there 20-30 years had a grandfathered pension so despite the company being a dumpster fire they had golden handcuffs.
I was stuck. I kept applying to jobs and going on interviews for years, but I never got anywhere. I did end up moving departments within the company, but eventually, I just quit without having another job lined up. That company really messed with my head and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to get a much higher position. I’m glad I’ve moved on. But I started working there after the great recession, and I was stuck for years.
I worked for a place for 18.6 years. I got sick and had difficulty doing my job while I recovered. They fired me. I’ve since recovered and am fully functional. I’ll never be loyal to any company again.
Been at my current company for 13 years – I’m only 35. I’m scared of losing my job because I don’t have a degree and have just kind of kept my head down and moved on up. Been through a ton of management changes (like 4 CEOs and more).
I’m still here because I work 4/10’s and have Friday Saturday and Sunday off. I get to take a 30minute breakfast break on the morning and 1 hour lunches and walk ~2 miles per day on a nature trail.
I get to come and go as I please and if I have appointments I can leave work early to go to them during the week or on my Friday off.
Get a ~10% bonus each year and a raise every other year.
I also only have to work for about an hour or so each day and can spend the rest of the day reading or working on projects.
I will never be rich here but the work life balance and stress load are great.
I look at other jobs paying slightly more than what I make now that require so much more stress and work and just can’t justify switching jobs for a couple grand and much more stress.
Coworkers also leave me alone and I have my own lab and office.
Just passed 4 years here.
I was at my previous employer for 5 years – I made it that long because I enjoyed the people I worked with and had a good boss, enjoyed what I was doing, pay was decent and I had a lot of vacation time/flexibility. The main reason I left was because our company did a merger and essentially the new company took over things, my boss was fired and new boss basically wanted their people in place and phasing out others.
Current position – three years and likely will stick around. Similar reasons as above – good boss, enjoy my co-workers, pay is good. I also have consistently received a raise and bonus every year, I’ve been promoted as well. I’d like to see more upward growth in my position and without that, I may leave, but for now, I have it pretty good.
I work in somewhat niche field where my employer is pretty much my only real option (Small country)
I’m 32 and i have never worked a job more than 4 years in my life. And only 2 jobs longer than 3 years.
My last company I worked for I probably would’ve retired from but the general manager brought back a super toxic dickhead after we all had a tream meeting and unanimously voted to not bring him back. I loved my job but I took it personally. He was fucking up my day to day work life, where you spend more time with those people than your own family or partner. I don’t compromise anymore.
Working for a friend of mine for a year and a half now, hes an intense guy to work for and I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m almost to the point I can’t work for anyone but myself.
Rollover PTO, capped wage for my position, experience in understanding the politics
I never have, and I bet I never will. I will always be looking for the next opportunity after around 2 years. And that could mean applying for a bunch of new jobs with better conditions/pay, or it could mean re-visiting my entrepreneurial drive and see what I feel like doing for some side income that may or may not turn into something bigger.
By ignoring the bullshit.
“You’re hiring a new person at my salary, but not raising my salary?”
“You’re cutting our hours because the stupid shelving remodel cost more than you expected?”
“There’s a hiring freeze even though we’re constantly short staffed?”
“No more free drinks in the kitchen, but you’re still using company money for sport tickets and a new car?”
You can stay at any company as long as you’re cool with corporate bullshit.
I remind myself of my priorities. My husband is disabled. My current job is 1.6 miles away from home. It pays the bills (barely, but it does) and I have enough PTO to cover the doc visits and ER trips. Anything I jump to will lose at least one or more of those things. I live and work where I do, not because I particularly like it, but because it checks the boxes that matter. Work is work. It’s not a calling.
17 years same job. It’s a government job with a pension. I’m to old to go anywhere else.
A lot of us switch teams every 2-3 years or so so change can still be achieved…
Sometimes you just get lucky. You get a great position and great coworkers and bosses. I have had a few jobs that I stayed at for more than 5 years. I also had a few that I knew wasn’t for me so I left immediately.
What sucks is when you find a job you love and then a few years in it all changes. That happened to me twice. Once when we got a new CEO and once when we bought another firm and somehow we were absorbed under their management who were the worst people on earth.
Easy I get paid well have lots of benefits and vacation days. Have you considered that your coworkers are fine and it’s you who is the problem?
They are letting me work from home. It makes it a lot easier.
I’ve been at the same company for almost 15 years. It’s a decent place to work, and it’s not uncommon to see people who have been here for 20-25 years. Most people I know who have left have said that the place they went wasn’t as good, but they left for reasons related to being able to move up the ladder faster than staying.
I’ve been very fortunate to have very supportive leadership throughout my career here. I’ve had several different roles and have been able to build my whole career from starting as a sysadmin to now being the lead architect for my org of 70 developers. My compensation has increased by 5x during that time, and is higher than I can get elsewhere (I do keep a pulse on this).
I realize that I’m the exception here. Usually you can move up faster by job hopping. But I really haven’t run into that issue here, and so I’ve just had no good reason to leave something good for something unknown.
Essentially, I am unskilled but also paid too much to be able to quit while I live the life I’m living.
Coming up on 6 years now with a job where I’m working 40 – 60 unpredictable hours a week (including weekends). I don’t love the content of my job, and I’m not particularly thrilled about my coworkers either. They’re fine, but I’m not really close friends with many of them. My opinions are often discounted and it’s hard to get changes to go through as well.
That said, it’s just a means to an end for me. I make great, fast-scaling money, and it’s safe. I don’t particularly care about how “meaningful” the job is. As long as the status quo isn’t hurting me, I won’t agitate for changes too much. Not many better alternatives I can see in my immediate purview, so I’m satisfied enough with this place to stay for the long-term.
I’ve been with my company for over 10 years. I love the money, benefits, the work that I do, I’m super familiar with the company as a whole, I work from home and have work life balance. I have 8 weeks of time off a year plus all holidays. If I left I’d be starting all over and that doesn’t sound good to me lol.
I’ve been at my current job seven years and the simple answer is: I like the job, I work on my own, and the pay and benefits are competitive for my area. I have been trying to making lateral moves to work for the state government, but it’s for the simple fact that my raises haven’t kept up with inflation and I have no chance at upward mobility within my company.
I’m not sure if I can relate to this. I’m a web Dev and it’s pretty much expected for web devs switch jobs every 1-3 years. I once had an interview and the interviewer was kind of shocked that I worked for a company for 4 years. Their reaction came across like 4 years is a huge accomplishment.
Last company I worked for 20 years. I was pretty junior in tenure with a majority at 30 plus years very few were at retirement age. Owner philosophy his greatest asset were his employees. Unfortunately we closed in November as there just wasn’t any more growth or profit for the company (home entertainment distribution DVD games music). I was past retirement age so decided to retire. We were given a healthy severance package as well as all of our computers and monitors etc. everything else he donated to teachers (monitors, computers, office supplies etc). It was a fantastic place to work filled with incredible benefits, 4 weeks yearly vacation plus added personal days, two weeks sick time which kept accruing each year or you could cash it out. 100%match 401k up to 25% two bonuses a year. Able to make your own decisions. My longest tenure ever. Previous employment 6 years. When I went to work for my last employer I searched for the company with the highest employee rating. Bonus. 7 miles from my home. It is up to you to seek out the best for you
I work from home. Get a raise every year. People are treated with respect and fairness. Tons of vacation, personal, and sick days. I don’t always like working, but I am happy where I ended up. Just hit 6 years.
I did an apprenticeship at a small machine shop and stayed there until it closed down when the owner couldn’t find a successor. 9 years and 10 months, so close to the 10 year mark.
I’m autistic, so i’m not good at job interviews.
The coworkers and even the bosses there were super chill and i really thrived in this environment where it was up to me how to do things as long as the result is right, but there were also difficult moments when someone (often me) made an expensive fuckup. At one point i thought i was gonna be fired.
At around 8-9 years i started to feel like the owner doesn’t want anymore because no big investments or projects were happening. Some employees left and were not replaced. I thought i would stick around until the 10 year mark.
I’m now 10 months into my 2nd job and can’t stand it for the reasons stated by OP.
I was with my last company for 4+ years. I only left when work ran out. Current company is great also and I could see myself here for a while. It helps if you enjoy what you do and show your employers that you’re trying to be better. It also helps if your employers are able to see you as a human being.
Been at my current company for 6 years, but the job I did for the first 5 years was entirely different than the job I’ve had for the past year, so I’m sure that’s helped make it much less mundane.
I really like the company I work for. We work on cool stuff, have really good benefits, great work life balance, work 4/10s (3 day weekend every weekend), and my salary has gone up over 75% since I’ve been here, so I haven’t really had a reason / need to leave *yet*.
I don’t like change and a absolutely DESPISE looking for new jobs.
I totally get what you’re saying with regard to being fed up with people I work with, but I look at it this way. I don’t get paid to like the people I work with. I get paid to do a job.
I like what I do, where I live, and the people that I work with, and my company’s benefits keep improving as well, and they were good to begin with. Granted, I had to swap departments at the 8.5 year mark because I was getting burned out with nights/weekend manufacturing support, but I’m tied to product launches and not necessarily production for the last 9.5 years, which has been more predictable and enjoyable.
I’m at the point now where I’m senior enough that most (though definitely not all) options that are a step up for me would be getting into management territory, which I have absolutely no desire to do. I work remotely, we have unlimited PTO (that they actually let us use!), and since a lot of us are spread across the country they’re pretty flexible with scheduling and don’t micromanage us. My only real complaint is that our health insurance is kinda meh, though it does beat out the ACA plans in my area.
There has recently been some instability with surprise layoffs, but I’m in the regulatory department, which means that we’re basically the last people to ever get cut (and probably won’t be cut any time soon). When I’ve gotten paranoid about that, I’ve looked around for other jobs and they’re all either a lateral move that seems pointless or have slightly higher pay with far worse benefits. Seeing the latter makes me happy to stay where I am.
I did 7 years at a company under 2 owners. I regret it. I made ok money but not great. I didn’t improve my skills as much as I should have. I got laid off as I was applying for other jobs. I would only stay if I was truly happy otherwise I would bounce around now days.
I did that with my first, out of university job (stayed for ~6.5 years).
It was strategic for me, it was a small, high growth company and was able to get to leadership roles faster than normal and get the work experience needed get my professional designation and be considered for 6-figure jobs afterward.
Don’t get me wrong, it wore me down mentallly and emotionally but I’d rather the struggle be early on and have being 30 y/o onwards be better.
I’ve been at my company for 11 years, the pay is decent but the healthcare is amazing and it’s what I need due to multiple health issues. Sometimes I just want to call it but overall, I’m stable in life and I’m okay with this. I want to enjoy my life after work and this allows me to do this.
I think I removed my ego from work. I don’t want or expect anything from it. No vision of a future. I’m barely aware of my co-workers. If I find myself caring about something, I focus on why I feel that way and on why it doesn’t matter.
> People at the top like things as is and rather not change anything at all. It drives me nuts.
I think you’ve answered your own question here. You like change. The people who stay at a company for a long time like things to stay the way they are. Nobody is right or wrong per se (every situation is different).
From being a manager, I can say that it can be very risky to make changes if things are working well so changes are often made only when something is broken.
Employees who worked for me often had good ideas and I would implement any that I had the power to do so. But, there were some that I couldn’t implement, and sometimes I could tell those people why and sometimes the reason was above their (or my) pay grade so they would never properly understand the reason why something couldn’t be changed.
I hit 6 years in my job today, longest job was 7 years. I’m feeling the urge to change again now as I won’t get any further with the company.