• 

  Well-Being Defined

• 

  Well-Being and the Workplace: Is Yours Stressing or Supporting Your People?

• 

  Well-Being: Move the Needle, Reduce Costs

• 

  Keys to Longevity: Environment & Community

• 

  Hidden Factors Influencing Well-Being in the Workplace

• 

  Financial Wellness, From Wall Street to Your Street

• 

  Chicago launches its innovative wellness program designed by Healthways, setting an example for the rest of the country

• 

  25 Days of Kindness

• Employee Well-Being Predicts Productivity and Retention

Bad Bosses, Bad Business

The movie Horrible Bosses played last weekend to packed houses.  While the audiences roared with laughter, I suspect many people recalled horror stories shared amongst friends throughout the years; and I know they weren’t alone. If you’ve been in the workforce for any length of time, chances are you have first hand experience dealing with your very own bad boss. While (we hope) the characters in this film were a caricature of real world experiences, the truth is many employees are feeling stressed and unappreciated and it’s straining not only on individuals but on organizations as well.

So how wide spread is the problem?  And how do employees perceive their bosses?  Wayne Hochwarter, a professor at Florida State University, has spent years studying boss-employee relationships with a focus on hostility, stress, and declining performance.  His latest findings are shocking and uncover a sad state of affairs in employee/employer relations.

According to Hochwarter:

• 40% of workers wouldn’t acknowledge their boss if they ran into them on the street.
• 29% believed that their boss would throw them under the bus to save their own job.
• 34% reported that their boss is two-faced, & speaks negatively behind their back.
• 24% have caught their supervisor in a direct lie but never received an apology
• 29% of employees have hidden from abusive bosses.
• And while employees are constantly asked to produce and increase productivity, 41% of employees believe their bosses are just plain lazy.

Doesn’t paint a very pretty picture, does it?   Unfortunately, we’re seeing similar trends reveal themselves in the Well-Being Index.  The WBI shows work environment consistently coming in as the lowest scoring index.  The score that’s dropped the most over time is ‘collaborative supervision’.  The work environment has gotten more dog-eat-dog, unemployment is at record highs, and jobs are less plentiful.  Supervisors can get away with being less collaborative and more command and control-oriented.  Since employees need the job, they put up with more restrictive management styles.

Some good news: Employees ability to work to their strengths actually trended up.  Lean workforces are the new normal and it’s allowing people to take on responsibilities that play well with their strengths.  Unfortunately doing more with less can get exhausting and it’s wearing workforces thin.

So who’s suffering the most as the result of a poor work environment?

• Gender: Females are more likely to report that they do not have a trusting work environment and lack collaborative supervision.
• Marital Status: Fewer single people believe they have collaborative supervision and they feel they don’t get to use their strengths at work  (this is likely a function of age)
• Ethnicity: Hispanics have the highest work environment index scores, and African Americans have the lowest – there is a 12.3 point difference between the overall well-being scores of these two groups.
• Income: As you might expect, scores for the work environment index increase directly with income with those making $120k or more per year achieving the highest overall scores.   These higher scores are tied to their ability to use their strengths at work, and higher job satisfaction.  Interestingly, trusting work environment does not seem to be impacted by income as much as other items.

So what’s the impact of a poor work environment? Reduced productivity, increased absenteeism and presenteeism, decreased loyalty, and more stress. It also makes people angry.  We know that if people score poorly in the work environment, 31% of them report being angry for most of the previous day.  Put into perspective, that level of anger is on par with the 100 poorest counties in the US, as well as the troubled countries of Sierra Leone and Haiti (ouch).

Employers must think about how they can foster healthy change in their workforces and leaders.  It starts with changing the culture.  We know that a collaborative environment – where management and workers voluntarily partner together, employees feel challenged, and everyone has the resources to get the job done – creates the best possible culture with the highest well-being. I challenge you and your organizations to some introspection:  What can you do to increase collaboration and better support your people? And what’s standing in your way?

Written by: Jennifer Rudloff

4 Responses to Bad Bosses, Bad Business

1. Sam says:

   August 23, 2011 at 7:46 pm

   I feel like the compensation disparity between the high-paid executive and the real experts (employee) must also be a key factor in this poor boss/employee relationship.

   Reply
   • John Harris says:

     August 24, 2011 at 12:04 am

     Thanks Sam. I am sure that is a factor. Thanks for contributing.

     Reply
2. Amber Cox says:

   September 23, 2011 at 2:50 pm

   As an employee, I feel compensation isn't nearly as important to job happiness as an encouraging, positive work environment. I can remember the job I was happiest to go to everyday — Payless Shoes. Lame, you think? You're probably right. I made $6.50 an hour. I was only 18 and had never really worked before, but I had a section of the store that was *mine* to maintain. My manager and fellow co-workers (there were only 4 of us) ran the store like a well-oiled machine. My manager praised us for the store cleanliness, the low shrink and great customer service we provided to customers. I don't think I ever called in sick — not once — to Payless. Its not to say that I didn't get sick, but with so few people working, it was important to make it to your assigned shift. If you arrived to work and really felt bad, one of them was sure to say, "Go home, I'll work for you.." and with that kind of backup, who wants to let someone down? I never met anyone from corporate working that job. I'm sure not a single CEO knew I existed, but the collaboration to a job well done — even if we were the only ones singing praise to one another, was enough to keep me there over a year even with little pay.

   Cheers to bosses to give continual praise when they see work being done well. Praise is free, and worth more than you can possibly imagine to someones well-being and self esteem.

   Reply
   • John Harris says:

     September 30, 2011 at 11:11 am

     Amber, thanks for your comments. You provide a great example. Remember, the questions we ask on the Gallup | Healthways Well-Being Index and the Healthways Well-Being Assessment include:

     -Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your job or the work you do?
     -At work, do you get to use your strengths to do what you do best every day, or not?
     -Does your supervisor at work treat you more like he or she is your boss or your partner?
     -Does your supervisor always create an environment that is trusting and open, or not?

     I bet you would have answered a big "yes" to at least 3 of the 4 when you worked at Payless Shoes!

     Reply