By, Julia Matulionis |Staff Writer|
A statistical study has shown that workers would prefer better bosses over better pay.
A staggering statistic was released last month after a survey of Americans was performed by workplace psychologist Michelle McQuaid who stated, “65 percent say a better boss would make them happy while 35 percent choose a pay raise.”
The majority of employees surveyed stated they were unhappy with their bosses attitudes and ways of conducting business and prefer a better boss to better pay.
Leaders in the workplace have a lot on their shoulders: managing a team, concerns over the bottom line, and worrying about their higher-ups. But does this amounting pressure give them an excuse to treat their employees poorly? One student says no.
Student Kimberley Daily said, “I hated my job because of my bosses. The managers would not communicate … I always felt like I was getting yelled at when I was just doing what another manager told me to do.”
Associate Professor of Business and Public Administration here at CSUSB Kathie L. Pelletier expanded on what makes a bad boss.
“Its a combination of dysfunctional personality characteristics, amoral (lack of integrity), callous, self serving, arrogant, emotionally unstable, wreck-less, insatiable ambition, and a ambition that cant be quenched.”
She continues with behavioral examples. “Demoralize employees, intimidate and threaten employees psychological and physiological well being, demean them, ridicule them, show favoritism, and promoting an us versus them mentality.”
According to the Harvard Business review people say they would trust a stranger more than they would trust their boss. This is disheartening given the current economic crisis.
According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics the average yearly salary of a Californian is a little above $50,000. But considering this average includes salaries as high as $250,000 and as low as $0, that combined with the high cost of living, it can be hard to see how low the average take-home income is for a majority of Californians.
The unemployment rate is at 7.9 percent as of October 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
Pelletier expands, “There are so few jobs and so many people put out of work and based on our condition in our economy people are grabbing the first job they see and tolerating bad leaders simply because they need the money.”
A prominent theory about human needs was developed by Abraham Maslow in 1943 and is still relevant today. His theory says that as human beings we have to take care of our physiological needs first before we can move onto others.
It’s as simple as having a roof over your head, and having access to nutritional needs like food and water. This can help explain why people are taking jobs they don’t necessarily want so they can keep those physiological needs met.
According to The Homeless Resource Center, 1,593,150 individuals have experienced homelessness; only 26 percent of those were diagnosed with mental illness, 34 percent had a substance abuse problem, and 37 percent were under the age of 30.
These are separate statistics that can overlap to potentially draw conclusions of our current economy. One might wonder what other life changing events brought them to a place of homelessness.