世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from iShare into relationships with one’s boss revealed some interesting facets of the worker-boss relationship in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23rd of July 2010 427 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 31.1% in their thirties, and 38.4% in their forties.

I do regularly but not frequently talk to my boss about career advancement, but I’ve never had a decent answer from him, thus I’d be in the 27.4% in Q1SQ4. I’ve only had one direct boss that I can say I respected totally; my employer seems to breed large number of middle management who do not want to rock the boat and would prefer to stay in the office until all hours producing low-value but high-volume reports rather than asking why the information is needed.

Research results

Q1: Are you currently in employment? (Sample size=427)

	All	Male N=230	Female N=197
Yes (to SQ1)	77.0%	86.1%	66.5%
No	23.0%	13.9%	33.5%

Q1SQ1: Do you currently have a boss at your workplace? (Sample size=329)

	All	Male N=198	Female N=131
Yes (to SQ2)	78.7%	79.8%	77.1%
No (to SQ6)	21.3%	20.2%	22.9%

Q1SQ2: Have you had an opportunity to talk with your boss about career advancement? (Sample size=259)

	All	Male N=158	Female N=101
Yes, frequently	7.7%	7.6%	7.9%
Yes, occasionally	44.0%	45.6%	41.6%
No	48.3%	46.8%	50.5%

Q1SQ3: Do you talk with your boss about stuff other than work? (Sample size=259)

	All	Male N=158	Female N=101
Yes, frequently	20.5%	14.6%	29.7%
Yes, occasionally	64.5%	69.0%	57.4%
No	15.1%	16.5%	12.9%

Those who frequently talked to their boss about career advancement were also much more likely to talk about non-work-related matters.

Q1SQ4: Do you respect your boss? (Sample size=259)

	All	Male N=158	Female N=101
Completely	16.6%	15.2%	18.8%
A little	56.0%	57.0%	54.5%
Not at all	27.4%	27.8%	26.7%

Those who frequently talked to their boss about career advancement were also much more likely to respect their boss, although I would think that respecting one’s boss would cause people to more frequently talk about promotion rather than vice versa.

Q1SQ5: Do you feel your boss trusts you with delegated work? (Sample size=259)

	All	Male N=158	Female N=101
Very much so	17.8%	16.5%	19.8%
A little	61.8%	63.3%	59.4%
Not at all	20.5%	20.3%	20.8%

Once again, those who frequently talked to their boss about career advancement were also much more likely to feel their boss trusted them.

The next question was for everyone in employment.

Q1SQ6: Do you feel motivated in your current job? (Sample size=329)

	All	Male N=158	Female N=101
Totally motivated	27.7%	29.3%	25.2%
A little motivated	54.1%	49.5%	61.1%
Not at all motivated	18.2%	21.2%	13.7%

Not surprisingly, there was a strong correlation between being motivated and talking to the boss about both career advancement and non-work matters.

Q1SQ7: Are you currently thinking about changing jobs? (Sample size=329)

	All	Male N=198	Female N=131
Yes, definitely	9.4%	9.6%	9.2%
Yes, a little	40.7%	40.4%	41.2%
Not at all	49.8%	50.0%	49.6%

Surprisingly, there was a much weaker correlation between chatting to the boss and being less keen on changing jobs. However, those who didn’t have a boss at their workplace were much more in favour of staying put!