We all have our own stories about the worst boss we ever had. It’s pracitcally inevitable in life that we will we have to deal with at least one. But while this is something we’ve all experienced personally, our most recent Employment Monitor revealed that people react to bad bosses very differently depending on their situation.
As part of our research for the Q2 2016 Employment Monitor, we surveyed hundreds of jobseekers across Ireland. What we noticed with was that, while nobody likes a bad boss, some people are far more likely to put up with one than others.
Permanent Employees
Permanent employees were more concerned about the relationship they have with their boss than either contract or temporary employees. Permanent employees were also more concerned about salary, location, than contract employees. These statistics likely reflect the fact that a higher quality of work-life is important to permanent employees, given that they will be in the job for the foreseeable future.
This is supported by the fact that the longer people intend to stay in their next role, the more likely they are to leave it because of bad management. 18% of those who intend to stay less than a year said a bad boss would be their main reason to leave a job. This figure rises to 29% for those who intend to stay for 2-5 years, and 31% for those who intend to stay over 5 years.
Other Employees
Contract employees are the least likely to leave a role over a bad boss, possibly because they already know when they will be finishing. They also have lower levels of job security than permanent employees, which could explain why they place more importance on career opportunities than any of the other groups.
Surprisingly, temporary staff are more concerned about a bad boss than contract staff. This could be because temporary staff know that they are only in a role for a short period of time, often a single day, and therefore feel less inclined to put up with bad working conditions. Although they still ranked opportunity as the most important factor, temporary workers gave more importance to salary than any other group.
Self-employed people were the only group to rank a bad relationship with their manager as their main motivation to leave a job. This is hardly surprising, and quite possibly is the very reason that they decided to go down the route of self-employment. They also ranked salary as an important factor, although still slightly less so than career opportunities.
Other Interesting Points
22% of men ranked a bad boss as their primary motivation to leave, while 28% of women gave the same answer, the largest disparity between the genders on this question.
80% of people who ranked a bad boss as their main motivation to leave a job also believe that looks play a major role in getting hired.
21% of Secretarial & Administration professionals ranked a bad boss as the main reason they would leave a job, higher than any other sector.