In a new survey released this week in celebration of National Boss Day (it’s a thing), it was revealed that 65% of Americans say getting rid of their boss would make them happier than a salary increase.
So much for “Happy Boss’s Day”—if this is true, supervisors should expect more subterfuge than baked goods in celebration.
According to the study, conducted by psychologist Michelle McQuaid, the author of Five Reasons to Tell Your Boss To Go F**k Themselves, the majority of Americans are unhappy in the workplace—and more often than not, their say their boss is to blame. 70% of respondents say they would be happier and 55% say they would be more successful if they got along better with their supervisor, numbers that McQuaid say illustrates a deep sense of unease in the workforce.
That more employees would rather see their boss replaced than receive a pay raise, though, puts the problem into stark perspective, particularly in an economy where salaries are stagnating. But McQuaid says people’s sense of unhappiness is much more tied to their health and well-being than we might imagine, citing studies that link aggressive or “bad” supervisors with increases in anxiety, depression, heart disease and even the deteriorating of personal relationships away from work.
These symptoms of a bad boss can manifest in an employee’s performance, causing productivity to decline. She posits that employees may believe that a better boss would help them to earn more in the long-run than they might if they saw a pay increase but were stuck in a negative work environment. “In that context,” she says, “It actually does make quite a bit of sense to choose the new boss over a raise.”
McQuaid sees that loss of productivity as a much bigger problem than any employee’s personal unhappiness…
Read more: Forbes