Sales & Marketing Management has a quick hitter of a story regarding an Adecco survey about the worker-boss relationship.
I think most people are aware of this:
“The relationship between a worker and his/her manager has very real implications for both employee satisfaction and performance,” says Ray Roe, president of Adecco North America.
But here is a survey result that I found somewhat surprising:
The younger the worker, the less impact the boss has on overall happiness. Among Generation Y workers, 53 percent said their relationship with their boss had no impact on their work-life happiness. However, 62 percent of baby boomers report their bosses have influence over their day-to-day lives.
Now, the thing with surveys is that the wording of the question does influence the response. It is difficult to fully comprehend these results without knowing the questions that were posed.
My off-the-cuff explanation is that Gen Y workers have a better work-life balance than the Baby Boomers. This balance allows them to “escape” the stresses of their work role, including their relationship with their boss. Boomers, on the other hand, have their identity more closely tied to their work role. Therefore, their relationship with their boss is more important to their overall work-life balance.
It has been many years since my Psych courses in college, but I think that explanation is accurate. We explored some of these items in our article Hiring Adjustments for Generations X and Y.