54% of office workers unhappy with manager

A scene from "Misaeng," a hit drama aired on cable channel tvN last year that is based on a webtoon depicting the office life at a trading company .

By Kim Bo-eun

More than half of office workers are unhappy with their manager, a recent survey shows.

In a survey by education agency Hunet on 471 non-managerial employees, 53.9 percent responded they were dissatisfied with their managers. Only 16.8 percent said they were happy.

Reasons employees were discontented were managers’ lack of leadership (44.9 percent), lack of communication skills (21.7 percent), lack of work skills (20.9 percent), and lack of manners and common decency (12.6 percent).

Almost all employees surveyed (95.6 percent) agreed that the manager's leadership affected the growth of non-managerial employees as well as the organization.

Most employees also agreed (95.6 percent) on the need for managers' self-improvement, citing leadership (67.3 percent), work (16.5 percent) and humanities (12.9 percent) areas they need to study and improve on.

Managers themselves also showed concerns about their leadership skills.

In a separate survey on 345 office workers in managerial positions on stress factors, 49.3 percent responded they came under stress when they weren't able to effectively exert leadership.

Following were when they felt burdened about achievements of their team (33.3 percent), when they felt a generation gap with team members (12.2 percent) and when they felt outperformed by team members (2.6 percent).

"The survey shows that non-managerial office workers are dissatisfied with their manager's leadership skills ― something managers are also concerned about," said a Hunet official.

"Systematic leadership training is necessary for managerial positions, in order for the company to grow and develop further."