Back to work blues? Blame the bosses…

 “A bad boss can take a great workforce and destroy it, causing the best employees to flee and the remainder to lose all motivation”

After all the festivities, it’s time to head back to the office and it’s no surprise that January is notoriously known for being the most depressing month of the year (yikes, tough crowd you’ve got here January!).

However, despite the dark days, dark nights and miserable weather, January is a month of opportunity and a perfect time for organisations to review their working practices to make improvements for the future.

With almost half the UK workforce planning a career move in 2018, this is a pretty good reason to review your business practices as a priority; it will help to retain your talent and avoid high levels of turnover. Investors In People has released their annual Job Exodus Survey 2018 and the results have shown that 49% of unhappy employees are seeking alternative employment due to poor management which is a 7% increase from the previous year; this is ahead of pay, which has previously been the main reason for considering a move in previous surveys. Additional notes are that 39% of employees feel undervalued by their organisations, whilst online recruitment specialist, Total Jobs, have conducted their own research and anticipate that poor management could lead to an exodus in an already candidate driven market.

Paul Devoy, Chief Executive of Investors for People, said it was vital for management strategies to evolve to meet the demands of employees. “In a year where unemployment has reached its lowest level since 1975, but wages have stagnated, the improvements to the labour market have failed to translate to the pockets of UK workers,”.

Employee disengagement costs the UK economy £340 billion each year and a large contribution to this is due to poor management. It also has a significant impact upon employee mental health causing an increase in work related stress and depression.

All is not lost, bosses can improve and some considerations that organisations may want to consider cost a lot less than you think, there is of course an opportunity for training managers and ensuring they are not bad bosses is a great place to start. Other desirable offerings to make employees happier, could be to introduce flexible working or remote working practices, which is proven to encourage creativity and innovation, but it’s also cost effective for organisations. Work is not a place that you go to, it is something you do.

It could be argued that there also needs to be accountability from the employee side, yes, it is easy to become a disgruntled employee, but it shouldn’t become the default setting. We are responsible for our own career paths and therefore we must be prepared for a roller coaster; after all a smooth career path isn’t one that is worth working for.