Have you ever wished you could flunk a boss for being so bad at his job? Or perhaps you’d assign your manager an A grade if you could, because of how well she treats you and your team. A new CareerBuilder survey provided workers with an opportunity to do just that – evaluate their bosses’ performance and give them a grade from “A” through “F.”
While more than 6 in 10 (63 percent) U.S. workers say their manager deserves an “A” or a “B,” 1 in 7 would assign a “D” or “F” (14 percent). Here’s the full breakdown:
- A: 24 percent
- B: 39 percent
- C: 23 percent
- D: 9 percent
- F: 5 percent
Getting good grades for communication
If bosses want to boost their grades, they need to study up on good communication skills. According to the survey, workers who interact on a regular basis with their bosses tend to give them higher ratings than those who have more silent managers.
Thirty-one percent of employees who interact several times a day in person with their boss assign them an “A,” compared to just 17 percent of workers who engage with their boss once a day or less.
The survey also shows that it’s becoming more acceptable to communicate through technology, and that any type of communication, whether in-person or over a text, can raise a boss’s grade. Twenty-five percent of workers say their boss typically communicates with them via text or instant message. Of those employees, 30 percent assign an “A” to their boss’s performance.
“Managers who interact frequently and communicate directly are more likely to have the support of their employees. The ideal form of that communication will vary from individual to individual, but everyone’s jobs get done better when expectations and roles are clearly defined,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “The best managers understand the triggers for their workers’ success and are able to course correct when productivity drops or conflict arises.”
Request fail: Bosses and their odd demands
The quickest way for a manager to earn an “F” from her employees is to ask them to do tasks that are unrelated to their jobs, and frankly, inappropriate. Workers shared some of the strangest requests made by their bosses, which include asking an employee to coach other employees on how to pass a drug test, or forcing a worker to fire a colleague and then drive him home.
Read more: You Won’t Believe What Some Bosses Ask Workers To Do
