Employees say being ‘loved’ at work helps

MONDAY marks the big return to work for millions of people‚ and there’s a key way bosses can ease the pain‚ say researchers.

Employees want to feel the love‚ a psychology conference in the United Kingdom has been told.

“In the drive for performance management the human touch gets overlooked‚” said Fiona Beddoes-Jones of The Cognitive Fitness Consultancy.

“People want to feel that a manager and the organisation genuinely care about them‚ and that is often what is missing.

“And as they say‚ people don’t care how much you know‚ until they know how much you care.”

A study presented at the British Psychological Society conference in Liverpool found most respondents were dissatisfied with the level of warmth and care displayed at work and believed their wellbeing would improve with more “love”.

A total of 70% of respondents said they would prefer a “collaborative and supp working environment‚ yet only 26% said they wanted a manager who was “nurturing and kind” or “unconditionally supportive”.

Another study unveiled at the conference found that employees of bullying bosses tend to be more depressed and likely to engage in counterproductive behaviour.

A total of 1 200 participants completed questionnaires about their psychological wellbeing‚ prevalence of workplace bullying in their organisation and their manager’s personality.

The data showed that those who work for bullies had lower job satisfaction and scored higher on a clinical measure of depression.