Member Article

Employees want a laugh with bosses

The ability to have a laugh with your boss is seen as the most effective workplace relationship builder.

According to research from officebroker.com, workers really want a boss with a sense of humour.

Of 600 employees, more than a quarter chose sense of humour as their top boss trait, followed by trust, respect and patience.

Other top boss traits sought by employees were found to be fairness, open communications and honest.

Comical bosses were found to be more important to female employees than male, with a 61% to 39% split of those choosing it as the top manager trait.

A spokesman from officebroker.com commented: “As workers are pushed to do more demanding and time consuming roles it’s becoming increasingly important that they can share a joke with their boss in a bid to increase their enjoyment of the working day.

“A sense of humour is an extremely personal thing and so any worker luck enough to have a boss with the same tastes as them could be on to a winner in terms of job satisfaction.

“We found traits which are widely regarded as being positive to a working relationship such as respect, trust and open communication still went a long way to a productive environment but it seems many workers want to go one step further and regularly share a joke with a superior.

“In fact, of those employees we polled, many stated they believed that the ability to share a joke with a boss encouraged a culture of openness in the workplace and helped remove formal barriers.

“It is worth noting however that a boss who jokes around too much, a David Brent style character, could well risk damaging now only his, but also his employee’s performance, it really is a fine line.”

He concluded: “We all know how stressful work can be and often this is caused by a fraught boss employee relationship, so the ability to relieve any tension by sharing a joke is not only enjoyable but in the long-term could prove essential for businesses.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .