The employee contributes to the company’s growth and success, and the company endorses the employee’s market value by acquiring new skills. The employer-employee relationship becomes mutually beneficent as it is based on adding value towards each other’s goals. Acknowledging that the employee might leave is actually the best way to build trust, and thus develop the kind of relationship that convinces great people to stay. When applying the tour-of-duty strategy, companies embrace the possibility that the employee might leave, but they gain the certainty that at least they will engage themselves to the specific assignment. This concept can be used in the business scene as it focuses on committing to and accomplishing a specific, meaningful mission within a realistic timeframe. Tour of Duty is a military concept used to describe a single specific assignment or deployment. In his book The Alliance, Hoffman used the term ‘Tour of Duty’ to describe a successful alliance between both parties. The time has come to courageously embrace the fact that uncertainty is the new reality, and to move towards a mutually beneficial alliance. The current state is one of mistrust on both sides: companies cannot guarantee long-term employment and employees cannot guarantee long-term commitment. But in an era where change is the only constant, and adaptability and entrepreneurship are the most sought-after qualities in employees, loyal commitment without any guarantees in return is no longer viable.

This resulted in the company and its employees having a family-like commitment. Being hired by a company meant guaranteed lifelong employment in exchange for loyal service. In an era of stability, the old model of employment was a perfect fit. Reid Hoffman, internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist and former co-founder of LinkedIn, published The Alliance, a book providing insight and a framework for the new model of employment.

Many companies are working hard on rethinking and rebuilding their employer-employee relationship framework. New jobs are emerging, work hours and work places are becoming flexible and the relationship between employers and employees is evolving from way back when they formed a lifelong family, over transactional relationships to today’s alliances. When it comes to employment, a lot has changed over the past few years.

This is our way to show we are excited for the New Year and we hope we provided you with an interesting and inspiring read. As firm believers of this strategy, we gave our clients a copy of The Alliance by Reid Hoffman as a Christmas gift. When alliances are formed, both companies and employees grow Written by Penny van Puymbroeck on 23 January 2018 for Clients The Alliance: managing talent in the networked age – Reid HoffmanĮxellys is perfectly aware of the expectations of its young IT talents and the needs of the companies we work with.