The decision to hire an employee for life is a serious commitment on the part of both parties. For the employee, such an arrangement means lifetime job security. From the perspective of an employer, however, the deal is not so sweet. Guaranteed lifetime employment, or tenure, at a company, can promote bad work habits, prevent innovation, and lead to potentially disastrous personnel problems. When a workers employment is contingent upon their job performance, they will tend to work diligently. On the other hand, if workers know that no matter how hard they work, they will receive the same amount of money and have no chance of being fired, there are no incentives for them to work. For people to be model workers they need compelling reasons to work hard and produce work of the highest quality. A tenure-system promotes laziness, inefficiency and low-quality work because it fails to offer incentives for good work, and fails to offer compelling deterrents against bad work. Secondly, companies that offer lifetime positions to employees cannot adapt to a rapidly changing world. For instance, if an employee who was hired by a company twenty years ago might be too old to effectively learn new computer-related skills. In todays modern office environment, companies that cannot make effective use of new technology are at a severe disadvantage to those that can. In this case, a company that does not have the freedom to restructure, hiring and firing employees, in accordance with shifting demands is likely to fail. A company that provides its employees with tenure effectively locks out new blood and runs the risk of being paralyzed by a staff unable to change with the times. Finally, offering tenure to employees is a major risk because of unforeseeable personnel problems. Every office, no matter how well managed, is bound to have personality conflicts. In many cases, personality conflicts can lead to one of the feuding parties leaving the company. But if the conflict involves two tenured employees, the business might be seriously affected, even destroyed. Despite the uncertainty it brings to workers lives, the company must look out for its own best interests first and not allow this disastrous situation to occur by not instituting a tenure policy.
决定雇用一名雇员是对双方的一个严重的承诺。对于员工，这样的安排意味着终身职位的安全。然而，从雇主的角度来看，这项交易并不那么甜。保证终身雇佣，或在一个公司任职，能促进不良工作习惯，防止创新，并导致潜在的灾难性的人事问题。当一个工人的就业取决于他们的工作表现时，他们会努力工作。另一方面，如果工人们知道不管他们多么努力地工作，他们也会获得同样数量的钱，而且没有机会被解雇，他们没有工作的动机。对于工人们，他们需要有强制性的理由来努力工作，生产出最高质量的工作。一个终身教职制度助长懒惰，低效率和低质量的工作，因为它没有提供做好工作的动力，也没有提供令人信服的威慑坏工作。其次，向员工提供终身职位的公司不能适应快速变化的世界。例如，如果一个被一家公司雇用的员工二十年前可能是太老了，可以有效地学习新的计算机相关技能。在今天的现代办公环境中，不能有效利用新技术的公司对那些能有效地利用新技术的公司不利。在这种情况下，一家公司没有进行重组、雇用和解雇员工的自由，按照转移的要求很可能会失败。一家公司为员工提供终身教职，有效地锁定了新的血液，并有一个无法改变的员工被一个无法改变的风险。最后，向员工提供终身职位是一个主要的风险由于不可预见的人事问题。每一个办公室，不管有多好的管理，都必然会有个性冲突。在许多情况下，人格冲突会导致敌对的一方离开公司。但如果冲突涉及两终身雇员，业务可能会受到严重影响，甚至破坏。尽管它给工人带来的不确定性，公司必须寻找自己的最佳利益放在第一位，不允许这种灾难性的局面，没有一个任期内实行的政策发生。