British Employees ‘Better Then Their Bosses’, Survey Says

Some British employers may want to think about making a few changes to their general business practices – not to mention their recruitment process – after it emerged that a majority of employees believed they could do a better job than their boss.

The figures, compiled by job website, Monster, showed that British employees rank as the most critical in the world, with 70 per cent feeling that they could do better than their boss – and 41 per cent rating their seniors as “totally incompetent”.

The international poll sought the opinions of 9,000 workers in 52 countries. While the UK was at the most critical end of the scale, China was at the most complementary, with a third of workers polled describing their bosses as “brilliant” and just 15 per cent questioning their competency.

Continental Europe and the US fell between the two extremes, resulting in a global average of workers who think their bosses are completely incompetent of 33 per cent and 34 per cent who thought their bosses are “OK” but could do better.

Monster spokeswoman, Isabelle Ratinaud, said the figures indicated the strong feelings of frustration among many British workers.

“In reality, it is unlikely that there are so many poor and incompetent bosses in the UK. It is more likely that employees either harbour some resentment because they want the larger salaries and better perks, or there is insufficient communication between leaders and their teams,” she explained.

However Geoff Newman from flat-fee recruitment agency Recruitment Genius feels the feelings could be linked to cultural differences.

“I doubt this survey takes into consideration the cultural and socio-economic differences of countries. It’s well known that the Chinese are more conformist and less derogatory about their colleagues, whilst covertly they have just fought very hard for an amazing 30-70 per cent pay increase this year. Furthermore in India the vast majority of companies are self-employed or family owned so they naturally want to reduce friction by criticising their peers.