Business Organisations Should Hire Employees for Their Entire Lives - IELTS Task 2 Sample Essay

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Model Essay 1

The proposal that businesses should employ people for their entire working lives assumes permanent stability is both desirable and practical. I strongly disagree: lifetime employment often undermines organisational agility and hampers individual professional growth. In this essay I will argue that fixed, lifelong contracts can stifle innovation and create skills mismatches for firms, while simultaneously constraining employees’ career development and motivation; instead, flexible, development-focused employment models are preferable.

Permanently assigning staff to one organisation risks institutional stagnation and economic inefficiency. Companies operate in shifting markets where technologies, customer preferences and regulatory regimes change rapidly; binding themselves to a static workforce makes it difficult to pivot or to source emergent expertise. For instance, a legacy manufacturing firm bound to lifetime hires may struggle to recruit data scientists or automation engineers, forcing costly retraining or outsourcing. Moreover, guaranteed employment can blunt accountability: when job security is absolute, incentives for high performance, creativity and cost-awareness weaken, fostering complacency. From a macroeconomic perspective, such rigidity reduces labour market dynamism, discourages entry of new firms and diminishes overall productivity growth.

From the employee’s viewpoint, lifetime employment can be equally limiting. Career progression today often requires mobility—switching roles, industries or geographic locations to acquire diverse skills and networks. Insistence on lifelong placement curtails this mobility, reducing an individual’s capacity to adapt, upskill, or pursue entrepreneurial ventures. Psychological research links autonomy and perceived growth opportunities to higher job satisfaction and productivity; enforced permanence removes these drivers. A more constructive approach combines medium-term contracts, continuous professional development and performance-linked rewards, which balance security with flexibility and encourage both loyalty and learning.

In sum, while job security matters, mandatory lifetime employment is neither practical nor beneficial. It impedes organisational responsiveness and restricts workers’ career agency. A superior strategy is flexible employment coupled with robust upskilling and fair incentives, which preserves stability without sacrificing adaptability or human potential.

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Model Essay 2

Employing individuals for the duration of their working lives is often portrayed as outdated, yet I contend it remains a valuable organisational strategy. I fully agree that lifetime employment can yield profound advantages: it cultivates deep institutional knowledge and long-term commitment within firms, and it offers employees psychological security that encourages sustained skill investment and civic stability. In the paragraphs that follow I will examine how enduring employment strengthens organisational capability and benefits workers and society alike.

A principal advantage of lifelong hiring is the accumulation and transmission of tacit knowledge that transient labour cannot replicate. When employees remain within one company for decades, they internalise complex routines, customer relationships and informal problem-solving methods that are costly to codify but essential for competitive advantage. Firms that invest in long careers also gain from lower hiring churn and the ability to plan multi-decade projects—think of aerospace or precision engineering firms where continuity across teams ensures safety and quality. Moreover, predictable tenure justifies ambitious, firm-specific training programmes: employers are willing to underwrite extensive apprenticeships and cross-disciplinary rotations when they expect a prolonged return on that investment, producing a workforce uniquely attuned to organisational goals.

Equally important are the social and individual gains from lifetime employment. Job security reduces financial anxiety, enabling employees to pursue deeper professional development rather than short-term job-hopping for marginal pay gains. This stability fosters stronger workplace communities and intergenerational career pathways—employees mentor successors, preserving craftsmanship and organisational ethos. From a macro perspective, broad-based lifetime employment can temper income volatility and encourage savings, housing stability and civic participation. Critics argue it might stifle innovation, but when paired with internal mobility, performance review and role redesign, long-term contracts support both creativity and responsibility by aligning incentives over extended horizons.

In sum, enduring employment arrangements offer more than nostalgia: they institutionally embed expertise, justify substantial training, and provide workers with the security necessary for sustained growth. When combined with mechanisms for internal renewal and accountability, hiring people for life remains a pragmatic route to resilient, innovative organisations and healthier societies.

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