While people are evaluating their personal relationships this Valentine´s Day, they should also take a close look at their professional ties as well. The average worker is at the office between 50 and 60 hours a week, and that´s a lot of time to spend with people you´re at odds with.
Development Dimensions International, a global human resource consulting firm, and Badbossology (www.badbossology.com), a bad-boss protection resource site, have conducted a series of surveys to understand what breaks and mends trust in the workplace-and vengeful actions that workers take when they believe a boss has gone too far.
Building bridges
Trust is the foundation of all relationships-personal as well as professional. When workers weighed in on how trust is broken between a boss and his or her direct reports, respondents were torn between jumping to conclusions before checking the facts (30%) and betraying their confidence or sharing a secret (24%)
"Trust is like the heart-its easy to break and it takes painstaking effort to repair," Rich Wellins, Senior Vice President, DDI, said. "A boss has to understand the origin of the broken trust, and take that individual´s feelings seriously."
Nearly 1/5 of respondents said they couldn´t trust a boss who took credit for someone else´s work and 16% said that showing favoritism with other team members is the straw that breaks the camel´s back for them. Does a boss who has lost the trust of his or her team have to change jobs? Not exactly, said Wellins. "It will take patience and some real effort to rebuild that relationship, but it can be done."
Surveyed workers rated ways that the boss could make amends. Above all else, honesty was at the top of the list with 36% of the responses. Workers don´t want their boss to make promises they can´t keep, and would prefer that they are upfront about what they can and cannot do. The second most popular response with 34% of the responses was recognizing achievements within the work team and to organizational leadership.
A bitter pill
Sometimes soured workplace relationships lead to retaliatory behavior-like revenge. Workers admitted to committing acts of revenge against a bad boss. The top responses including ridiculing them to their peers (48%), going over their head with an idea or complaint (34%) or quitting a project or position at a critical time (14%) to leave them in a lurch. Just 2 percent said they have submitted sub-par work in their boss´ name.
"While these actions may have made workers feel vindicated, they haven´t resolved anything with their boss," Wellins adds. "If the boss doesn´t understand what is at the heart of their actions, it is unlikely that they will change their behavior."