Lesson: Why Overworked Staff Still Love Their Bosses
Commiserations: you have missed the cut for the 2017 list of chief executives rated most highly by their own staff.
Perhaps your employees judged you “lazy”, “rude” or “unprofessional” — all comments posted on the jobs site Glassdoor, which compiles its rankings from staff reviews.
Or maybe you ignored the advice of last year’s most popular chief executives. “Be real. Be vulnerable. Care,” suggested one. “Over-communicate,” counselled another. “Create joint ownership,” said a third.
Resist, though, the temptation to top the rankings by lavishing on your ungrateful staff policies to improve their work-life balance. Glassdoor’s analysis of its own data suggests highly rated chief executives are more common at companies that have a lower work-life balance.
Line managers are the main conductor for good leadership… Good management is the hidden cause of improved productivity
Take Lloyd Blankfein, puckish chief executive of Goldman Sachs. His investment bank earns only 2.7 stars out of five for work-life balance (“Be prepared to say goodbye to family life, exercise routines and hobbies,” comments one former technology employee). For reference, that is a lower grade than Sports Direct, the UK retailer denounced last year for imposing “Victorian workhouse” conditions on warehouse staff.
Mr Blankfein, though, achieves a 93 per cent approval rating and regularly makes it into the 100 highest-rated US chief executives.
Welcome to a looking-glass world, where overworked drones, lashed to their desks all day, return home late to kick the cat, shout the children to bed, then hunch over their laptops to tap out glowing approval ratings for their ultimate bosses.
Vocabulary:
commiserations – words that show you feel sorry for someone who failed or lost, “I offered my commiserations to Tom when his team lost the game.“
compiles – collects information from different places to make a list or book, “The company compiles a list of the best hotels every year.”
vulnerable – open to being hurt or showing your real, soft feelings, “It is hard to be vulnerable and talk about your mistakes.”
lavishing – giving a very large or huge amount of gifts, praise, or love to someone, “The parents are lavishing money on their child’s birthday party.”
ungrateful – not feeling or showing thanks for something nice that was done for you, “He was ungrateful and did not say thank you for the gift.”
puckish – liking to make jokes or play harmless tricks on people, “She had a puckish smile when she hid my pen.”
denounced – criticized someone or something strongly and publicly, “The mayor denounced the bad behavior of the crowd.”
drones – people who do boring, hard, and repetitive work without any joy, “The workers felt like drones as they packed boxes all day.”
hunch over – to bend your body forward and down over something, “If you hunch over your phone for too long, your neck will hurt.”missed the cut – to fail to reach a needed score or standard to be included on a list or a team, “He practiced hard but missed the cut for the school soccer team.”
work-life balance – the proper division of time between working and resting with family or hobbies, “Working from home helped her find a better work-life balance.”
highly rated – praised by many people or given a very high score, “This hotel is highly rated by people who travel for business.”
say goodbye to – to accept that you will lose something or no longer have it, “If you take this busy job, you can say goodbye to your free weekends.”
approval rating – a score or percentage that shows how much people like or support a leader, “The mayor has a high approval rating because he fixed the city roads.”
makes it into – to succeed in becoming a part of a specific group, list, or place, “Only the best players make it into the final tournament.”