According to a Leadership IQ study, it appears that the recession has impacted employees’ relationships with their supervisors and employers. The study found that 66% of employees surveyed said they have too little interaction with their bosses. That is an increase from 53% in May 2008, leading to speculation that the recession is to blame. This finding may be particularly troubling as the economy improves and the pre-recession battle for talent amongst recruiters begins to wage again, because those who said they don’t get enough feedback are 43% less likely to recommend their company to others.
Two-thirds of respondents said they get too little positive feedback from their bosses, and more than half say they get too little constructive criticism.
53% said that when their bosses do praise excellent performance, the feedback is too vague to encourage repeat performance. And 65% said that when their bosses criticize poor performance, they don’t provide enough useful information to correct the issue.
Employees are desperate for feedback and interaction with their bosses, and their job performance suffers when they don’t get it. More than half of employees say when they do actually get feedback, it’s useless. When your own stress level is through the roof, the last thing you want to do is meet the emotional needs of your employees, but this is precisely the time that employees really need lots of feedback.
