Let’s Give Bad Bosses the Boot

What is it with rotten bosses? How do these people keep their jobs? A Newsvine story called Bad Bosses Common, Problematic provides the disturbing details:

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. — For most people, it’s back to work Tuesday after a holiday weekend with family and friends. And for many, a new study shows, it will be under a bad boss. Nearly two of five bosses don’t keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, the Florida State University study shows.

I say let’s take a stand against bad bosses in 2007. Let’s think about what it takes to give bad bosses the boot. Let’s stand up and say, in the words of Howard Beale in Network, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” Imagine what could happen if companies spent their energy purging bad bosses instead of trying to do more “engagement” surveys. As we said before, truthfulness instead of truthiness should win out.

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Pay Surveys are So Dead. Not.

I saw a website that claims they can tell you what you should be paid just by popping your job title into this website. (I’ve seen lots of others out there too, this is just one example.) Hey, so much for salary surveys and data checking. Just for fun, put your own job in there.

What troubles me about this kind of “data” is that it’s not adjusted for credentials, company size, experience, competencies or much of anything else (except geography). It’s misleading, kind of like those unscientific pay “studies” published in trade magazines when they ask anonymous readers how much they make. Science has proved that people over report their pay levels (kind of like they do on sex surveys, where they over report on other things). Another thing that’s unclear: Is the number reported the maximum for the job? The minimum? Why isn’t there a range?

I’m not sure what to make of all this. There’s a single number displayed, and it’s not clear if that’s salary, total cash, or total compensation. From a communication perspective, this is more of stirring up trouble than it is about giving substantive data for salarly negotiations. For you compensation professionals out there, here’s another of the “forewarned is forearmed.”

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