NEARLY half of Scottish SME employees have quit their job because of a boss, according to new research from a process management firm.
Process Bliss carried out a survey of 1000 employees across the UK’s small businesses and found 47% of Scottish respondents had left their work as a result of a problem with a manager.
The study found a further four in 10 do not feel trusted or valued by their current boss.
“Being a strong and effective SME leader is one of the toughest challenges someone can face,” said Alister Esam, pictured, CEO of Process Bliss.
“People always assume that because someone is ‘the boss’ they know exactly what they are doing, but the truth is that many bosses are simply making it up as they go along.”
Some of the main criticisms of Scottish SME leaders involved bosses unable to delegate properly or avoid interfering in employee’s work.
Further complaints included managers showing obvious favouritism towards certain colleagues (25%), not being clear when giving instructions (21%), not acknowledging or giving thanks when a task is completed well (21%), taking credit for others’ work (15%) and micromanaging (17%).
“There are many leadership styles and each boss must find what works best for them, but clearly issues such as micromanaging and being unclear when instructing about a task are causing employees at Scottish SMEs to leave their role and impacting on company productivity,” Esam added.
“I would encourage any Scottish SME leader to take the role of ‘boss’ as seriously as possible – speak to peers, network and take professional advice wherever possible.”
There was some good news for SME bosses, though, as 45% of respondents said they found their boss inspiring, and 60% said their boss is open to being challenged.
When asked to rate their boss out of 10, the average figure across the UK was 6.7.
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