Do your workers trust their supervisors?
May 27, 2010 by Tim GouldPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Management
Some ominous news for your managers: Only one in five employees say they have confidence in their supervisors’ judgment.
That’s the upshot of a recent survey from staffing consultant Right Management, which says only about 20% of rank-and-file workers surveyed said they “always” trust their managers to make the best decisions.
About six in 10 said they “occasionally” trust their managers; another 19% said they rarely do.
Other key findings:
- Thirty-one percent of senior executives (C-level and VP) “always” trust managers’ decisions compared to only 22% of non-management employees.
- Employees at smaller companies are more likely to trust their managers’ decisions (26% reporting “always”) compared to those at larger firms (only 20% reporting “always”).
- Twenty-seven percent of workers aged 55+ “rarely” trust managers to make the best decisions, versus 15% of 18-24 year olds.
Overall, not a pretty picture. But probably not real surprising, considering the morale hit both employers and employees have taken over the past 18 months or so.
What do you think? When the economy rebounds, will these survey results remain the same?
Tags: manager judgment, morale, right management
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June 1st, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Has the following been taken into account?
Employees that are 55 plus have been through the political mill a few times and unless very skilled in politics have taken at least a few hits career and $ wise. With that comes a fair amount of distrust for superiors.
Employees 18-24 are frequently new to the work environment and tend to be trusting of superiors as they have not been burned yet.
Also the older workers may not be as “Up” on the current trends in their fields as they have priorities other than work as in family and financial obligations such as mortgage children in college illness of partners and other family members or death of someone in the families.
The younger workers are fresh to the work force and looking to a unlimited horizon as far as advancement and earning potential the older worker is looking at retirement and how to make life work, meet obligations on limited resources and not so hot heath.
The younger worker is not concerned with being replaced at a lesser salary as the older worker is and the older worker feels the pressure of the hunger of the younger ones.
June 7th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Good points, DF. The “younggins” probably haven’t been around long enough to have seen the political crap that can take place at work and the “geezers” have probably seen too much of it. Although my guess is the younger folks are learning fast because EVERYONE has been victimized by the economy of late. Many companies are struggling to survive and in such a company it’s hard to trust anyone because it get political real fast.
June 11th, 2010 at 8:32 am
I think this is a little vague, since the % may be different depending on what type of decision making was being done. I think it would depend on a particular issue and if the employee feels the people in charge of the decision making process have accurate and correct information to base their decision on. Someone told me a long time ago that the higher up you go, the more the view down below changes.