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It's All Yours Boss

Michael Byers

By Ben Levisohn

It's All Yours Boss

Two workplace studies to consider as we sweep up the confetti from the Oct. 16 celebration of National Boss’s Day:

As the market continues to gyrate, 54% of employees polled by research firm Weber Shandwick say they haven’t heard anything from senior managers about what the financial crisis means for their company. About 70% say they would welcome that kind of communication. Some 62% predict their company would have trouble meeting its goals in the next year.

Does such angst help explain why, in another survey, 69% of 1,500 workers at all levels said they would refuse their boss’s job if it were offered? That’s up from 54% in 2005, when staffing firm Adecco last asked that question. Bernadette Kenny, chief career officer for Adecco Group North America, says the reluctance has less to do with economic turmoil than with the increasing demands of such jobs: “Technology has created the ability to be available 24/7,” she notes, and today’s leaders are also expected “to have all the answers—they face more pressure than ever before.” When it comes to the very top jobs, though, eager candidates still abound, says Robert Sloan, head of the U.S. financial services practice at headhunter Egon Zehnder. “In the upper ranks, there’s ambition and an interest to grow,” he says, “and to eventually have the boss’s job.”