So, you hate your boss?

You aren’t alone. It turns out many South Africans dread the workday and it has a lot to do with who manages them in the office.

A recent study by CareerJunction looked into the relationships between employers and employees with some interesting results.

If you’re a boss and you’re reading this, you might want to take note.

Over to TimesLIVE:

The research, which collected responses from more than 3,000 people, found that a third of employees who quit their jobs did so because of their bosses.

“While people want to be able to turn to their managers for help, guidance, career growth and motivation, it turns out many South Africans have unhealthy relationships with their bosses. This is having a detrimental effect on work morale and productivity as well as employees’ personal lives,” said the job portal.

A lack of trust and approachability between bosses and employees was also massive contributing factor towards many South Africans quitting their jobs.

That’s not all, though. The worst boss behaviours included the following:

• Favouritism — 44%
• Requested that employees work overtime without pay — 35%
• Denying a pay rise — 30%
• Unexpectedly denied a workers’ holiday/leave — 25%
• Taking credit for work that was not their own — 13%.

All of this amounts to a toxic work environment, which in turn affects the mental health of employees.

CareerJunction said [that] 27% of employees noted they have nightmares, 18% seek mental health support and 12% drink heavily because of their boss’s behaviour.

More than 50% of employees never want to socialise with their boss or invite them to personal events such as a wedding or birthday party.

Only 16% said they would classify their relationship with their boss as a friendship, with 11% describing their boss’s character as “awesome”.

If you’re a boss reading this and feeling a little bit guilty right now, here’s how to improve the situation:

• Provide clear performance/objective indicators
• Provide specific feedback about my work
• Create a learning/development programme
• Have a clear job description
• One-on-one meetings.

And before you feel sorry for yourself, because nobody understands how hard your job is, take solace in this:

A serendipitous insight revealed by the survey was that managers can take solace in the fact that workers agreed that being a boss is stressful (73%) and also admitted their managers acknowledged their hard work as employees (61%).

Overall, though, managers need to up their game.

Start by not being a dick. You’d be surprised at the difference it makes.

[source:timeslive]