Employees with a bad relationship with their manager could experience increased workplace stress, claims new research.

A study by MetLife found 69% of workers believe their employer’s behaviour is a major factor in their stress levels and could undermine company performance. Many employees felt having superiors who displayed poor management skills may play a key role in reducing productivity and lead to poor results in general.

Employee benefits director at MetLife UK Tom Gaynor said: “Complaining about your boss is not unusual but clearly when the behaviour of management is increasing stress in the workplace there is an issue to be addressed beyond trivial moaning. It is very worrying that nearly half of all employees say management behaviour has meant people taking time off because of stress. Managers should be ensuring stress is tackled before it becomes a problem, not contributing to it.”

A total of 49% of workers felt displays of poor management had led to significant periods of sick leave due to work-related stress. Companies are advised to consider looking at ways to help boost the health and wellbeing of staff and consider looking at how to tackle poor management, as well as offering employee assistance programmes.

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