April 2019
Featured in this insight: Business & enterprise
45% of SME employees have left a job because of their boss: A survey of SME employees has found that just under half have quit their job because of their boss.
The research by process management firm, Process Bliss reveals the potential impact of poor management in SMEs in terms of retaining staff as well as levels of productivity.
It also found that 60% of staff think that business would ‘work better’ If they were left to get on with their roles. Four out of ten (40%) said that their boss interfering is detrimental to the productivity of the company, while 42% felt that they could actually do a better job than their boss could.
The survey of 1,000 SME employees also asked respondents about the perceived main faults of their bosses in the workplace. The top response (27.5%) was the boss having a favourite employee in the workplace and showing clear favouritism towards them, followed by taking credit for work they had not done (27%) and micromanaging work (27%). Other bugbears included not being concise enough when outlining a task (25%) as well as not acknowledging a job well done or saying ‘thank-you’ (23%).
But it wasn’t all bad news for SME bosses. Over half of those polled said that they are inspired by their boss, with 58% revealing their boss is open to being challenged.
Rating their boss out of ten, the average mark given was 6.7.
Alister Esam, CEO of Process Bliss said of the findings: “There are many leadership styles and each boss must find what works best for them, but clearly issues such as micromanaging and being unclear when instructing about a task are causing employees at UK SMEs to leave their role and impacting on company productivity."
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