News

About one-fifth of us are frustrated in our jobs, according to a new study by consultancy Hay Group of 1m UK employees – and in most cases, we blame our employer for not providing us with the freedom, the skills or the authority to do our jobs properly. The results suggest that either Britain’s managers have a lot to learn, or we’re all a big bunch of moaners. Or possibly both.

Hay asked survey respondents to discuss their biggest frustrations at work: 50% said they didn’t have the necessary authority to make crucial decisions, while 35% suggested that their jobs don’t make their best of their skills and abilities – though whether their manager would agree with them on either point remains unclear...  ‘Frustrated employees are seeking a way to better deliver in their jobs,’ says Hay Group’s ever-hopeful Ben Hubbard. ‘Managers must act to remove procedural barriers and unnecessary bureaucracy’.

One of the big reasons for this general malaise is that managers don’t seem to be convincing their staff that they’re running a tight ship. The survey showed that a whopping 41% of managers were considered to have created a de-motivating climate within their team, while another 15% were damned with the faint praise of managing a ‘neutral’ environment. In fact, just 26% were considered to have created a 'high-performance' climate.

According to Hay, this is because the majority of companies are not very good at dealing with underperformance – i.e. at shipping out the deadwood that holds everyone else back. Even in the top-rated sector (utilities), almost 40% of staff felt their employer was not doing a good enough job of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

‘Tolerating poor performers will only compound the frustration of productive colleagues left to pick up the slack,’ says Hubbard. ‘The world’s most successful companies go the extra mile to identify, reward, engage and enable their best performers, while addressing deadwood. Those that fail to do so risk high-performing staff become frustrated, demotivated and potentially seeking pastures new.’
 
No such problems here at MT, of course. (You’re fired – Ed)

In today's bulletin:
BBC gets record fine for ripping off viewers
Even Lloyds TSB feels the squeeze
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Request stop for rogue bus driver