Thursday, November 26, 2009

When Workers Hate Their Bosses

When workers hate their bosses, you can't always openly tell. Some have disliked their bosses from Day 1. Others learn to increasingly disrespect their bosses and begin to shut down over time - eventually arriving to that point where they actually, in their minds, resign from the job. They end up doing just enough to not get fired.

Now before you go thinking that as long as they continue to do their jobs all is OK, let me clue you in. The levels of employee motivation have tangible ramifications for your organization:
  • Rates of theft will rise.
  • Quality of work will drop creating more defective products.
  • Work accident numbers rise.
  • Turnover and absenteeism both increase.
  • Customer service scores drop.
  • Profitability of the department drops.
If you've got any of these issues, then you've got a group of workers who have become disillusioned with their immediate boss. People who shut down like this don't have it in for the company (in most instances), they have it in for their immediate manager. It's not the corporate culture that irritates people over time, it's usually an immediate supervisor. Once an employee loses respect for their boss, good luck getting them motivated and engaged again.

Stop buying the excuses of department managers who always have an excuse for why theft is up, safety incidents are up, reports are late, turnover is high or why so many people seem to be sick. They're sick alright - sick of their boss.

Act quickly when you see the signs.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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1 comment:

Yuva said...

Kevin,

Smack on, another great piece!

I really like your posts because it's down to the bone and aunthentically captures the reality of worklife, no matter which part of the world you come from.

Quite honestly, I am also in that category of doing just enough to stay above water. Unfortunately, there are decent people in more worst situations on the operational floor. They go through a living "nightmare" because of one guy who behaves like Gen Tojo!.

I don't even dare suggest he subscribe to your blog for some antibiotics!. I can only feed the victims with the wisdom through articles on "survival under bullying".

When leadership is driven by fear, there is not much hope. For 5 years I have been trying to justify Employee Survey. I guess they know the outcome and the truth hurts.