Why bosses in one part of the US are better-liked than managers anywhere else
Employees in the Western part of the United States rated their bosses higher than average in a CareerBuilder survey conducted by Harris Poll among 3,031 adult workers.
An impressive 32% of Western-based bosses garnered an "A." In comparison, only 23% of workers in the Northeast gave their bosses an "A."
In total, 62% of all survey respondents gave their employer an "A" or a "B" grade.
So, what's the reason behind this regional difference of 10 percentage points? Are bosses in places like California, Arizona, and Oregon really better? Or are their employees just nicer on surveys?
CareerBuilder chief human resources officer Rosemary Haefner says that the data shows a correlation between high ranks for bosses out West and reduced face-to-face employer-employee interaction.
More workers in the West only meet with their boss in person once a week or less, and more employers in the West are based out of a different office than their employees.
"Our workforce may be shifting toward a preference for bosses that take a more hands-off approach - and those in the West seem to have picked up on that," Haefner says.
In the West, 69% employees also feel that their bosses provide useful feedback, ten percentage points up from the Northeast, where a third of employees "believe their boss should not be in a leadership role." Only 23% of Western workers agree with this sentiment.
The survey also found that bosses are crucial in employee retention. About a third of respondents blamed their manager for causing them to leave a job. Fortunately, only 6% of respondents gave their boss an "F" in the survey.