Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2012, written on 22 June 2012 in the middle of Euro 2012. The “23 players” and the closing “good luck in the Euro” belong to that moment; Spain went on to win the tournament on 1 July 2012.
We’re with La Roja! They made us suffer against Croatia. They thrilled us against Ireland. We identify with them and, today, we’re all behind La Roja (the nickname of Spain’s national football team). We hang flags from our windows. We buy shirts and scarves despite the heat. We drop everything to watch the next match. Together we shout “¡A por ellos!” (“Go get them!”). We feel loyal and faithful to a team and to a set of ideals.
As a football atheist, I still enjoy watching our team. They have made us loyal and given us a sense of belonging to the Spanish national side. Translated into human resources, we’re talking about a professional competency: loyalty and sense of belonging, also called integration into the organisation.
Defining the competency: integration into the organisation
It refers to each employee’s identification with the organisation.
It involves knowing the company’s values and cultural elements, embracing them, defending them and promoting them as if they were your own.
It refers to the employee’s willingness to defend the company’s interests when they are under threat, and it also involves giving priority to the organisation’s interests and committing to achieving them.
Examples of the competency
“It involves knowing the company’s values and cultural elements, embracing them, defending them and promoting them as if they were your own“
La Roja! It means speaking the company’s own language, sharing its symbols, its values and its principles. Identifying with the project and with the goal the company pursues, which satisfies your need for security according to Maslow’s pyramid.
The squad has 23 players, plus coaches and technical staff, who live for football and for taking Spain as far as possible in the Euro. A company’s employees have to do the same for theirs: they should speak positively about their company, show off its production processes, and be aware that they are its face and its representatives wherever they go, as well as flag-bearers for its success among their social networks and colleagues.
An employee who speaks badly of their company is a demotivated employee who doesn’t defend its values and principles. In La Roja, they would never have been picked to wear the colours.
“…the employee’s willingness to defend the company’s interests when they are under threat…“
It’s easy to think that others should be the ones chasing the ball and defending the goal. We defend our families tooth and nail. Mothers will “kill” when they see their children’s interests threatened…
A company’s employees have to go all out to defend the shared project that keeps making the company stronger and more powerful.
They are aware of the company’s goal and do everything they can to reach it individually, so as to help the whole team achieve its objectives. They are the ones capable of selling the unsellable because they believe in the company’s overall project.
“…giving priority to the organisation’s interests…“
Sometimes we’d like to be on holiday or free of duties. Yet we’re asked to make the effort to pick up the pace at work or to get more involved by working longer hours or taking on more responsibility. Some employees accept and others refuse. That’s loyalty and belonging to a team or organisation. It’s being integrated into a company and defending its project.
“…committing to achieving them“
Sometimes there’s talk of the bonuses footballers get for winning a match. Other times, matches go to extra time and then to penalties. In both cases the players are committed to the result, to the interests of the company, to the goal of winning. And neither juicy cash bonuses nor the effort of extra time or penalties are worth anything if we don’t make our company win and earn the profit we’re after.
Applied to business, it’s easy to say that a loyal, integrated employee makes their company “their own flesh and blood”.
By the way, since La Roja has let us compare it with this job competency: good luck in the Euro. ¡Sí podemos! (“Yes, we can!”). Is this motto an example of loyalty and integration into the company?
Further reading
- Job competencies: definition, types and levels
- Teamwork: practical examples
- Adapting to change at work
Featured image: Gdaniec, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
