Disgruntled employees with low productivity, lawsuits, internal conflict and higher turn-over of employees are all factors that can affect your business's bottom line. Despite these costs and operational problems many companies don't know who the jerks are and don't take action when needed.
The Good Boss Company, a consultant group, interviewed 1,000 employees and found that 58% of these employees looked for another job because they didn't like their boss. In addition, 1/3 of the workers in the office faked sick days when working for a bad boss when compared with only 1 of 10 with those who have good bosses. Thus, bad bosses have higher employee turnover and more people absent on any particular day.
If you feel that bad bosses don't have an affect on employees then consider that nearly 40% of American employees feel that have a bad boss. The wide scale of such feelings indicates that there is currently a problem with poor manager to employee relations that exists throughout the American labor force. Many of these problems revolve around people's lack of ability to communicate.
You may be wondering what really constitutes a bad boss. Bullying, incompetence, harassment, discrimination, disregard for the law, poor compensation, rude behavior and invasion of privacy are all signs that a boss isn't doing his/her job well. Such bosses are the result of the Peter Principle where they have been promoted to their complete incompetence.
The Peter Principle is in effect when employees are promoted to supervisory levels without having the skills necessary to effectively do the job. They were promoted because they were good at what they did. However, some people are great employees but terrible managers.
Even worse few employers will take much action against poor employees let alone bosses. According to a survey listed in the Journal Personnel Today 9 out of 10 people in authority do nothing about poor performance of bosses or employees. Thus, these bad bosses continue to stay within organizations year after year with little consequences.
If you have by now recognized that you need to make a few changes in your organization you may be wondering what you can do about it. The easiest solution is to wrap the bosses management skills and effectiveness into the performance appraisal. When poor management becomes wrapped into compensation and employment stability these managers will either improve their performance or be managed out of the organization.
