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.
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Having yesterday looked at what the workers think of being asked to do stuff for their boss regarding computers, today japan.internet.com, in conjuction with JR Tokai Express Research, looked into how bosses asked their underlings for help with computer-related tasks. They interviewed 331 people in management positions in private companies, but the male to female ratio was not specified, although it might have been a depressing figure. 68.3% were in their forties, 28.1% in their fifties, and 3.6% in their sixties.

Note that since this survey was an internet-based one there will be a bias towards more technically-competent bosses, so the figures should show the bosses in a better light than yesterday’s survey did! In addition, one would expect the workers to be more negative about their bosses and the bosses to be more positive about their own skills.
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japan.internet.com, in conjuction with JR Tokai Express Research, looked into how workers helped out their bosses with computer-related tasks. There is the promise of them reporting later on how bosses view their subordinates’ use of computers, which I eagerly await! They interviewed 330 people in non-management positions in private companies, 79.1% male. 17.6% were in their twenties, 48.8% in their thirties, and 33.6% in their forties.

Rather than the typical Dilbert image of the Pointy-Haired Boss (hmm, I can’t find that cartoon strip on the internet!), I’ve chosen the Japanese equivalent for the title, the Bar Code-Haired Boss. The boss here refers, I believe, to anyone in management that is above the respondent in the office hierarchy, rather than just the direct boss.

I don’t have much direct contact with management, but do I see a lot of the effects of a lack of skill. My biggest gripe is the inappropriate use of tools; Excel seems the tool of choice for memos, diagramming, etc; and PowerPoint rather than Word for specifications and other technical documentation.
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