Over the past few years there has been a lot of discussion of bullying in schools. We are all aware of the devastating impact bullies can have on their victims. Well, the same is true in organizations. Abusive supervision is defined as sustained displays of nonphysical aggression from supervisors to their direct reports.
As of 2012, overall job satisfaction is at around 50%. Averaging across all industries, job levels, and pay rates, only 1/2 of all employees are satisfied with their jobs. The other 1/2 rate their job satisfaction as neutral, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied. Mirroring this statistic (not surprisingly), only 50% of employees feel that their jobs are interesting. Does this describe you, your peers, or your employees?
Results from the most recent nation-wide Employee Engagement and Retention survey (Kenexa, 2011) revealed some surprising discrepancies between employee and manager opinions regarding turnover, satisfaction, and engagement.
What causes burnout? Many different things contribute to burnout and some of them are beyond your organization’s ability to control (e.g.., certain personality traits like “neuroticism” that make an employee more susceptible to burnout). However, the good news is that many factors are well within your sphere of influence: understanding each and taking action to deal with them will not only greatly reduce burnout, but in doing so will also contribute to employee retention and job satisfaction.
As organizations experience budget reductions, cutbacks, and workforce reduction, it is easy to understand that workplaces can be stressful. We all know that stress can lead to a myriad of problems with our health and well-being, but we also know that it is impossible to merely avoid all sources of stress. Certain types of stress [...]
Applied organizational research has shown that perceived overqualification is related to negative job attitudes and a greater likelihood of the overqualified employee leaving the organization for a different job. At the same time supervisors rate overqualified employees as better performers than their peers. Overqualification is a double-edged sword- it’s beneficial to the organization to have overqualified employees but unsatisfying and even frustrating for the employees themselves.
A recent report by the Conference Board stated that overall employee job satisfaction dipped to 45% in 2009. The report goes on to say that only half of all employees feel that their jobs are interesting. Does this describe your organization? The good news is that applied organizational research has shown that there are specific steps managers can take to increase employee job satisfaction dramatically.