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A new report says that nearly half of employees don’t trust senior management. It gets worse. Employees are not simply losing confidence in their senior managers — many workers think their front-line supervisors are flat-out callous liars stealing credit for anything good that happens. Ouch.
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With a brand new year comes the start of the season that many employees and their managers dread: performance reviews. Results of a new survey really should have every manager concerned.
Watson Wyatt’s WorkUSA 2006/2007 survey of more than 12,000 full-time U.S. workers across all job levels and major industries showed that senior management’s confidence ratings from employees have dropped slightly since 2004, from 51 percent to 49 percent.
Now a “silver lining” type of person may say, “Well, the survey merely indicates a 2 percent drop in trust and confidence since 2004.”
However, in contrast, many of those ratings had risen considerably from 2002 to 2004. The fact that only 49 percent now say they have trust and confidence in their senior managers means more than half of the employees surveyed have serious, deep-rooted problems with management.
Perhaps what is most telling, compelling and, really, just sad is, either way — 49 percent or 51 percent — nearly half of employees don’t trust their manager.
“This dip in ratings is concerning because employees’ attitudes about their senior leaders are a key factor in building engagement,” said Ilene Gochman, national practice director for organization effectiveness at Watson Wyatt. “People want to work for companies where they have confidence in the organization and trust what senior management is doing. Fostering that trust is especially important in today’s global market as it creates an environment in which employees understand that changes to the workplace may be necessary to remain competitive.”
Certainly, the notion of a dysfunctional workplace and tedious management is well documented and represented in our culture, from Dilbert comics to the movies “Nine to Five” and “Office Space” to the BBC and NBC television programs “The Office.”
It gets worse, with another recent study showing results that are even more dispiriting.
Apparently, employees are not simply losing confidence in their senior managers — many think their front-line bosses are flat-out callous, lying to employees’ faces and stealing credit for anything good that happens.
A survey from Florida State University, to be published in the scholarly journal Leadership Quarterly, found that many employees work for people who don’t keep their word, don’t give credit where credit’s due, talk poorly about them behind their backs and invade their privacy.
Recently, Wayne Hochwarter, an associate professor of management in FSU’s College of Business, along with two doctoral students surveyed more than 700 people who work in a variety of jobs about their opinions of supervisor treatment on the job. Depending on your personal workplace, the results may or may not be surprising:
• Thirty-one (31) percent of respondents reported that their supervisor gave them the “silent treatment” in the past year;
• Thirty-seven (37) percent reported that their supervisor failed to give credit when due;
• Thirty-nine (39) percent noted that their supervisor failed to keep promises;
• Twenty-seven (27) percent noted that their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers;
• Twenty-four (24) percent reported that their supervisor invaded their privacy; and
• Twenty-three (23) percent indicated that their supervisor blames others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.
Employees stuck in abusive work relationships were found to have experienced more exhaustion, job tension, nervousness, depressed moods and mistrust, according to the study.
Employees “were less likely to take on additional tasks, such as working longer or on weekends, and were generally less satisfied with their job,” the study found. “Employees were more likely to leave if involved in an abusive relationship than if dissatisfied with pay.”
Of course, this is not to say that all bosses are bad. In fact, most employees don’t have these kinds of problems, said Otis “Scotty” Scott, president of the San Antonio Human Resource Management Association, in a recent San Antonio Express-News article.
“Most supervisors tend to give credit and try to do a really good job,” Scott said.
You know what, though? Here at Industrial Market Trends, we’re anti-”us versus them.” So we wonder why there doesn’t seem to be any reports or surveys done on managers’ confidence in their workers. It seems safe to assume that all managers have seen their share of inveterate curmudgeons who, day after day, gripe about every work situation. Perhaps the attitudinal numbers above and their implications represent management’s confidence in their workers. These numbers are rather telling of the current state of employee-employer relationships, no?
Tell us about your relationship with managers, or, if you’re a manager yourself, tell us about your problems with employees. If we can’t hug it out, let’s type-talk it out.
Resources
Employee Ratings of Senior Management Dip, Watson Wyatt Survey Finds
Watson Wyatt, Jan. 4, 2007
Who’s afraid of the big bad boss? Plenty of us, new FSU study shows
by Barry Ray
FSU.com, Dec. 4, 2006
Bumbling Bosses Hurt Employees
by Aissatou Sidime
San Antonio Express-News, Jan. 3, 2007
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My job is great except for my boss. My doctor has put me on anti-anxiety meds for times when I need to deal with him. He belittles, he spins, he corners and if you ask any of the friends he’s hired or the president who he puffs himself up to, he’s great. He favors his “boys club.”
I’ve tried various ways of communicating with him to no avail. He’s even somehow made me out to be the bad guy who tries to jump over him, so now I’m not even permitted to contact HR unless I go through him.
I’ll just keep job hunting and bide my time. Unfortunate, since I like my job and the company.
It is an interesting topic. I thought in modern countries like US and Europe this condition would still be, but not at that percentage.
I am surprised. I thought this situation would be shown as a big percentage only at “growing countries” (like Indonesia, where i am a citizen ), but I felt this when I was working with a big hand-tool company located in U.S.
That’s why we need a supervisor or manager or someone to lead us that should have show good leadership, be wise and understand the reality of the field.