I saw a question asking whether a veterinarian who has served a company for seven years should earn more than another veterinarian who has only been there for two years, even when the younger employee consistently performs better, takes initiative, and accepts greater responsibility.
This is exactly the kind of uncomfortable management question I tackle in my book.
In the section Building Your Team, I deliberately included the issue of “loyalty vs competency.” Because one of the hardest lessons in running a veterinary practice is realizing that length of service and value to an organization are not always the same thing.
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Years of Service Matter. But They Cannot Be the Only Measurement.
A veterinarian who stays with you for seven years deserves recognition for loyalty and institutional experience.
But seven years in a company does not automatically mean seven years of professional growth.
An employee can remain for years while doing exactly the same level of work, avoiding additional responsibility, requiring constant supervision, and showing little initiative.
Meanwhile, another veterinarian may accomplish tremendous professional growth in only two years.
That younger employee may learn faster, volunteer for difficult responsibilities, become more dependable, improve clinical skills, help the team, and eventually contribute more value to the hospital.
Should an employer ignore all of that simply because someone else arrived five years earlier?
I do not believe so.
Loyalty and Competency Are Different Things
This is why I specifically discuss loyalty versus competency in the book.
Loyalty has value. Competency has value. Ideally, you want both.
But longevity should never become a permanent shield against accountability.
In another chapter, Building a Strong Veterinary Culture, I emphasize professionalism and accountability because healthy organizations cannot function when expectations are based purely on emotion or seniority.
And eventually every clinic owner encounters the uncomfortable subject of underperformance, which I also address under Difficult Staff Problems Nobody Prepares You For.
There comes a point when an employer must ask:
What exactly are we rewarding?
Presence?
Or contribution?
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Salary Should Have a Rational Basis
Compensation should never be random.
It should reflect the employee’s role, competence, responsibility, performance, professional development, reliability, and contribution to the organization.
That is also why I emphasize systems in veterinary management. Payroll should involve structure, accountability, documentation, and transparency. Attendance and overtime should be measurable rather than handled emotionally.
Contracts should likewise clarify compensation, duties, schedules, and professional expectations.
When these things are unclear, salary decisions easily become personal.
Then employees begin asking:
“Why is that person earning more than me?”
And management struggles to answer.
A proper organization should be able to explain the difference objectively.
Seniority Deserves Respect, Not Automatic Superiority
This is probably the simplest way I can put it:
Seven years of service tells me how long you stayed. It does not automatically tell me how much you grew.
If someone served faithfully for seven years and continuously improved, became dependable, mentored younger veterinarians, developed advanced skills, and carried greater responsibility, then seniority and competence reinforce each other.
That person deserves to be rewarded.
But if another employee with only two years of service has already surpassed that level of contribution, management should not be afraid to recognize it.
Otherwise, we create another problem.
We teach high performers that excellence does not matter.
We tell motivated employees that initiative has little value because eventually everyone will simply wait for seniority.
And that is how organizations slowly lose their best people.
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The lesson I wanted to communicate in my book is not that loyalty is unimportant.
It is that loyalty and competency must never be confused.
A veterinary hospital should respect years of service.
But it should reward growth, responsibility, performance, and value.
Because clinics do not become stronger simply because people stay.
They become stronger when the people who stay continue to grow.
Dr. Geoff Carullo is a Fellow and the current President of the Philippine College of Canine Practitioners.
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