Perhaps I should have titled this “Are You a Boss?” and backed into if you’re a jerk or not. Whatever the case may be, if you do have a boss that’s a jerk then welcome to the club! You are not alone. If you happen to be a boss, do you know if you are a jerk or not? Have you had anonymous assessments done at work from the people you manage? If you haven’t, now might just be the best time ever to do one.
My crystal ball is telling me that the job market is going to pick up, plus our clients are telling us so, which helps my crystal ball. What that means is that your employees are going to start looking for new opportunities. That is why now is the best time to find out what you can do to make them happier. My motto is to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. What everyone else is doing is treating their staff like crap. Today, more companies are telling their work force that 80 hours per week is the new 40. People today, because of the job market, feel that they have no choice but to kiss butt. Choice is about to change and with their backs against the wall, good luck with kissing their butt. How do I know? I’m a recruiter! I talk to people all day long who are at their jobs.
I know there are people in management out there who think their employees are privileged to be working but the number one reason why people are unhappy at work is because their boss is a jerk. Why not change their thoughts by asking them how you can make it better for them? An employee is likely to pick happiness over money because lets face it; no one is leaving making forty thousand dollars a year for an opportunity that is going to pay them one hundred and forty thousand a year. Leaving one job for another is not like going from a Ford to a Ferrari, but it could be like having one nag versus two. Hope my wife doesn’t read this! No she’s really great, but back to the blog.
People today are at an all time high stress level, like never before. Let’s face it, only two years ago people’s largest asset, their home, was worth a lot more than it is today and let’s not mention the kid’s college fund or retirement. If you manage people why not take the first step in making someone’s life a little better by making the work environment a better one. Before you know it they’ll be putting in the hours because they want to versus have to.
I can be a jerk of a boss when staff give me a reason to be, I am more of a jerk toward my management that are not doing the job keeping the staff under them working correctly. After many incentives and tries though they failed so I just released my entire staff minus a few key players.
I have been RIF’ed for over 400 days with no work in sight! All I hear is over qualified jobs on hold looking for local candidates only or some other nonsense. Even though I’ve been in management most of my life, I’d be willing to be one of those employees depicted in your story, that puts the blinders on and just takes it; doesn’t matter what it pays at this point, it is work! Ya see when the job market does turn around, those bad managers will be hitting the unemployment line and their job will be open to someone like me, that sat and took it, while learning everything from the inside! The mark of a good leader is someone that can follow, create their own path and find a niche in the best and worst of times.
As a general rule, I perform surveys all the time, during and after project completion. Anonymous or not, there are just some people which are going to think you are a jerk, because you forced them to work and do their job/part; shame on you! As you begin to work with the next generation of kids coming into the workforce, you’ll get more and more of this feedback, IF you do not know how to work with that generation or personality type.
I agree the new generation of workers believe they should be given entitlements Parents have falsly misled their children that they are good and parents neglect to supervise as such these kids are spoiled rotten and come into the workforce with I\’ll prepared professional mindset. Not so good when we are competing with emergent countries that work harder longer and are hungry for our jobs
you can still manage poor performance and not be a jerk. There is a huge amount of research that demonstrates that being a jerk actually has a huge impact on bottom line results as well as staff engagement and productivity
Interesting replies. As a boss I look at my folks as a team. We are in this journey together. We are trying to deliver the most value we can, and have some fun doing it. Admittedly there is NO time for fun, but we do try to laugh everyday. When people know you care about them they work hard for you. We make sure we measure and count our accomplishments, so we have a scorecard to show others, but also to pat ourselves on the back and feel good about our work.
Everybody works hard. I never ask if people are happy, but they seem to like coming to work everyday, and like the folks they work with, so I hope in the end it will be a place they want to stay when the job market changes.