Survey highlights

The survey found that an employee’s relationship with a manager is the most important factor in job satisfaction and retention. It also revealed some discrepancies between managers’ and employees’ perceptions of their relationships, including the following problem areas:

Overconfidence: Nearly half of managers (45 percent) never received formal management training, yet only 16 percent believe they frequently make mistakes. Further, most managers (71 percent) believe they know how to motivate their teams, but a majority of employees (56 percent) disagree.

Communication: Most managers (80 percent) believe they are transparent, but nearly half of employees (45 percent) disagree.

Approachable: Three-quarters of employees (75 percent) said that approachability is the most important quality in a manager, but only half (50 percent) felt their manager was approachable.

Trust: Nearly all employees (93 percent) said trust in their manager is essential to job satisfaction. The survey did not include results on how many employees trust their managers, but given the other results, trust is likely another area needing improvement.

The survey of more than 2,000 employees was conducted by Ultimate Software, a provider of human capital management solutions. The results, published in December 2017, show that many managers are not leading their employees as well as they think they are.