Free «Tours of Duty» Essay Paper

The world changes rapidly, and the interaction between people follow the same trend at different levels. One of the levels is employer-employee relationship that became different due to a new type of compact – a tour of duty. The article under consideration is “Tours of Duty: The New Employer-Employee Compact” by Reid Hoffman , Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh. The work will be the basis for attempt to evaluate the contract’s impact on society by the analyzing and investigating the main concepts presented in it.

Tours of duty offers mutually beneficial relationships between boss and employee on a fixed term. That is connected with two factors. The first one refers to the fact that “the best people don’t want one employer for life” (Hoffman, Casnocha & Yeh, 2013, para. 4). The second is the desire of companies to have the leading experts that provokes a staff turnover. Due to these, an employee tries to better the efficiency of the company, whereas an enterprise is going “to make [an employee] more marketable” (Hoffman et al., 2013, para. 11). The operative time of compact is two to four years. The time is enough for the employee to understand all processes of the work and decide what to do further. If the employee chooses to leave the job, the employer searches for a new candidate. It can also be the friend or relative of the dismissed person. The networks also contribute greatly to success of the tour of duty. Employees do the promotion of the company by posting the photos and leaving favorable reports about it. Moreover, by virtue of networks, companies keep in touch with alumni, what, in turn, increases the credibility of their return. All in all, the tour of duty is an “alliance between an organization and an individual that is aimed at helping both succeed” (Hoffman et al., 2013, para. 49).

The article focuses on several concepts. The first concept is the entrepreneurial employees. They are very useful, and it is crucial to find such people and give them the freedom to work in the way they want. On the other hand, such employees are a potential threat to you, as they can open an own firm and become your competitor. The second concept is a tour of duty. It is a new form of contracts, which attracts by its modernity and opportunities. It creates possibilities to both sides of a contract, giving them the favorable terms of a partnership.

The third concept is a network. The technologies pervade into our life more and more intensively and play essential role in the company’s prosperity. The firm asks employees to visit different corporative events and comment on it in the network. It is a chance for the enterprise to become well-known, as employees spread positive information and help with finding new highly qualified staff. The other variant is the alumni network. It is a more agreeable alternative, as the worker already knows peculiarities of the job and can easily enter the working process. All in all, the concepts mentioned are inseparable part of profitable employer-employee relationships.

In my opinion, tours of duty will have success when implemented in big companies and corporations. It has forcible advantages for both sides. Taking a detached view from organizational setting, it will help to organize working process of every employee and company in general. The idea of networks appealed to me, since their usage helps not only to improve interrelations within the business but also outside it. Moreover, corporative culture, which is well-promoted in them, can attract new smart minds to the company. Finally, the tours of duty indeed imply an intense staff turnover, but it is an opportunity to improve the average rank of intelligence among employees. Furthermore, it stimulates the staff to work better to progress and become the best specialist in the field.

In conclusion, tours of duty is a new level of organizational process in companies. Its terms encourage employees to dynamic actions and identification of new opportunities. Moreover, it assists companies with finding creative, entrepreneurial and smart workers due to new innovative methods of the search.