Report on : “Major

problems (6 ) that
employees have with
bosses “
Group Member Names : Mariam Effendi
Anila
Murarji Mandhan ( 8364 )
Faraz Kahn
Sana Qamar
Industry Selected : ( Banking )
HBL & Faysal Bank
ABL & UBL
HSBC
Summit Bank

Teacher Name : Dr Khalid Amin

Date of Submission : 30th November 2010

Course Name: HRM by Dr Khalid Amin Report Name: Major Problem that employees
have with bosses

Table of Content

Introduction...............................................................................................................................3

Abstract.....................................................................................................................................5

Problem Area.............................................................................................................................6

Preliminary Data Gathering.......................................................................................................7

Literature Review......................................................................................................................7

Research Methodology..............................................................................................................9

Finding and Discussion...............................................................................................................9

Conclusion...............................................................................................................................12

Recommendation....................................................................................................................13

Appendix..................................................................................................................................14

Bibliography.............................................................................................................................14

Report submission Date: 30th November 2010

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Course Name: HRM by Dr Khalid Amin Report Name: Major Problem that employees
have with bosses

Major Problems that employees have with

this bosses (in banking industry of
Pakistan)
1. Introduction

Job satisfaction is in regard to one’s feelings or state-of-mind regarding the nature of their work. It
can be influenced by a variety of factors like the quality of one’s relationship with their supervisor,
the quality of physical environment in which they work, degree of fulfillment in their work, etc. In
Pakistan a decade ago this concept was not practiced or applied and the employees were very loyal
to their organizations and used to start and end their career in the same organization.
In today’s business climate of continuous changes and uncertainty, the importance of job
satisfaction to organizational performance and individual can be “pay”. Job satisfaction is an attitude
and measuring attitudes at workplace is not an easy task. The service sector in Pakistan’s economy
has started to grow recently and among the financial market banking sector is one of the most
growing service sector in Pakistan. Over the years the market has seen massive opportunities in this
sector changed with the emergence of plastic money and online transfer etc. Thus the technological
breakthroughs affected the banking sector and numerous career opportunities were created in this
sector in all disciplines. The paradigm shifted from a financial sector to a services sector where
providing quality service to the customer became the ultimate goal of the bank. One of the biggest
factors in job satisfaction is one’s relationship with immediate boss

Almost everyone has worked at a job in which they had to deal with a difficult boss. Dealing with a
boss who is controlling can put you under a lot of stress. Bosses may even take credit for the things
you've done, or they may be terrible at communicating with you. If you're in this situation, you may
not know where to turn, and quitting your job may not be a viable option.
One problem with difficult managers is that they often don't realize they're hard to deal with.
Employees may be reluctant to speak up for fear of being punished for their actions. The definition
of a difficult boss may vary from job to job. Some managers fail to give enough feedback, while
others give too much. A manager who doesn't provide enough feedback to their employees may feel
that they are allowing them to be independent. A manager who gives too much feedback may spend
a lot of time micro-managing employees because they are insecure about their own jobs.

Because of this, managers may not realize that their actions are having an adverse effect on their
employees. When the employees don't voice their concerns, this can make the situation worse. In
this situation, a lack of communication is the main problem. It is important for employee to realize
that his/her manager is not omnipotent. They are human, and are prone to the same mistakes that
anyone can make. They may not have received the proper training required to lead , and they may
be frustrated with their own superiors. In a situation like this, a manager who is under a lot of stress
may take out their frustrations on their employees.

One of the biggest problems with managers who are difficult is that they may simply not share

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employees views. If employee feels that he should be working in a specific environment, manager
may have different ideas. A clash of ideals is another problem which occurs between managers and
employees. It is important to remember that employees have a role within the company. The job of
managers is to manage employee. Because of this, they will have the last say on a variety of different
issues. If employees feel that they should challenge their boss, this is a sign that perhaps they should
either find another job or start their own business.

In Pakistan the concept of HR is also flourishing day by day and employers as well as the employees
are getting awareness of their rights and demands. Job satisfaction is a key factor in today’s job
market especially when the industry is some what stagnant. The financial market specifically the
banking industry of Pakistan has boomed in the last few years. There has been a aggressive
competition in the banking sector in Pakistan which is because of foreign as well as local investment.
The major players have changed the gaming rules and modified new modern techniques for their
customers. This led to a major shift in the human skills required for the job and employees switched
a lot of jobs because of better prospects, higher salary and compensation and various other factors.
Due to heavy inflow of multinational banks in Pakistan, they thought a new culture in the banking
sector which was based on performance based rewards and compensations. This has brought higher
employment opportunities, increases in income level, and changes in consumption pattern and
consequently there emerges a competitive environment in the industry.

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2. Abstract

In this report we have tried to study the various issues/problems that exist between employee-
manager relationships especially from the point of view of Pakistan financial/banking industry. The
banking sector in Pakistan after changing rapidly into a services sector has a lot of emphasis on its
customers both internal and external.

Employee job satisfaction is deeply effected if employee does not enjoy working with his boss. Job
satisfaction is an attitude of an employee over a period of his job so the factors of satisfaction and
dissatisfaction changes over the period. It is a relative term and is nowadays used as a key factor to
determine the performance of a particular employee and organization. Satisfied employees are
more likely to be friendly, upbeat, and responsive which increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Dissatisfied employees can increase customer dissatisfaction. A homogenous policy may be
inappropriate to increase satisfaction, and hence labor productivity. Therefore it is very critical to
understand and eliminate the factor that causes friction between employee and his boss.

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3. Problem Areas

After conducting numerous interviews and compiling information from these interviews, mentioned
below is an elaborative list of problem areas that employees believe exist between them and their
bosses. Employees say that their boss:

 Is biased and nature and follows  Is bad listener

favouritism
 Underestimates employees
 Makes false commitments
 Does not buy opinions
 Steals credit/appreciation
 Does not take ownership
 Gives extremely/unrealistic squeezed
timelines  Does not assign specific Job description

 Does inappropriate delegation of work  Is tough on employees

 Argues about examples.  Lacks trust on employees

 Is Irresponsible  Has limited leadership qualities

 Steals credit/appreciation  Has very limited ability of delegation

 Gives Poor  Is very bad at managing time

supervision/grooming/mentoring to  Forgets things
employees
 Is biased
 Over burdens employee. Assigns too
much work in too little time.  Does not believe in document processes

 Does not ensure alignment of  Has very bad temper

Employee's his expectation.
 Is very bad at adapting to new
 Does not keep promises technologies
 Has bad time Management  Do not share business critical
information.
 Has very limited ability of delegation
 Putts the spotlight on flaws.
 Is very slow
 Provides invisible feedback.
 Compromises on quality
 Springs a surprise.
 Underestimates employees

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Preliminary Data Gathering

Banking has emerged as one of the fastest changing segments of sustainable finance. The research
done to support this report has the prime objective of exploring the evolving problems regarding job
satisfaction among employees related to banking sector. No research is accurate if the random
sample of the population does not reflect the diversified opinions, therefore we made sure that our
sample size is no doubt small (approx 8 members per bank) but reflects all fractions of banking
sector. We interviewed an employee from age to 25 to 42, from foreign grad to local grad, from
higher designation to lower designation, from lower middle class to upper class, from foreign bank
to local bank and from conventional to Islamic banking.

A questionnaire of approximately 25 questions was prepared, starting from general questions to

specified questions. Appointment was taken from respondents over phone. The way embarked
upon the exercise of data gathering was:

1. Prepare a detailed list of people we wanted to meet :

a. List of banks ( HSBC, Summit, HBL , Faysal Bank ABL and UBL )
i. List of Departments ( IT , Finance and Marketing )

The list of prepare using websites, personal contacts and via talking to general people. Once we had
the list we then prepared a formal questionnaire which majorly aimed highlighting the issues that
employees face with their bosses. We then try to seek appointments with these people. Getting
them to sit with us was a real issue and even if we got them to sit with us, making them talk negative
about their boss was the next big challenge. Almost all of these employees expressed that they were
scarred if this information may be made public. Those who couldn’t take out time to were courteous
enough to give a short interview over the phone. Findings of the respondents were noted down on
the pad and later analyzed carefully by the group members. Our conclusion has been drawn after
the analysis of the findings and mutual consensus of the discussions among group members.

4. Literature Review
Understanding employee satisfaction requires knowing some of the major debates in the field of
industrial psychology. The concept of employee satisfaction emerged in this area and Herzberg’s
duality theory is one of its major postulates.

Attitudes and their connection with industrial mental health are related to Maslow's theory of
motivation. His findings have had a considerable theoretical, as well as a practical, influence on
attitudes toward administration. According to Herzberg, individuals are not content with the
satisfaction of lower-order needs at work, for example, those associated with minimum salary levels
or safe and pleasant working conditions. Rather, individuals look for the gratification of higher-level
psychological needs having to do with achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and
the nature of the work itself. So far, this appears to parallel Maslow's theory of a need hierarchy.
However, Herzberg added a new dimension to this theory by proposing a two-factor model of
motivation, based on the notion that the presence of one set of job characteristics or incentives lead
to worker satisfaction at work, while another and separate set of job characteristics lead to
dissatisfaction at work. Thus, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum with one
increasing as the other diminishes, but are independent phenomena. This theory suggests that to
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improve job attitudes and productivity, administrators must recognize and attend to both sets of
characteristics and not assume that an increase in satisfaction leads to decrease in un-pleasurable
dissatisfaction.

Two-factor theory distinguishes between:

 Motivators (e.g., challenging work, recognition, responsibility) that give positive satisfaction,
arising from intrinsic conditions of the job itself, such as recognition, achievement, or
personal growth, and

 Hygiene factors (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) that do not give positive
satisfaction, though dissatisfaction results from their absence. These are extrinsic to the
work itself, and include aspects such as company policies, supervisory practices, or
wages/salary.

Essentially, hygiene factors are needed to ensure an employee is not dissatisfied. Motivation factors
are needed to motivate an employee to higher performance, Herzberg also further classified our
actions and how and why we do them, for example, if you perform a work related action because
you have to then that is classed as movement, but if you perform a work related action because you
want to then that is classed as motivation.

Unlike Maslow, who offered little data to support his ideas, Herzberg and others have presented
considerable empirical evidence to confirm the motivation-hygiene theory, although their work has
been criticized on methodological grounds.

Vroom's theory assumes that behaviour results from conscious choices among alternatives whose
purpose it is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. The key elements to this theory are referred
to as Expectancy (E), Instrumentality (I), and Valence (V). Critical to the understanding of the theory
is the understanding that each of these factors represents a belief.

Factors such as pay, the work itself, supervision, relationships with co-workers and opportunities for
promotions have been found to contribute to job satisfaction. These variables are costly to an
organization, as they could lead to low morale, poor performance, lower productivity, and higher
costs of hiring, retention, and training. (Opkara, 2002).

Studies have tested the hypothesis that income is an important determinant of job satisfaction but
employee satisfaction does not merely come good income , the hygiene factors play very important
role in job satisfaction and the better the understanding between employee and his boss the more
the satisfaction

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5. Research Methodology
The research aims at identifying and measuring the determinants of the issues usually faced with
employee while working with their bosses among various bankers in Pakistan. Employee-manager
relationship has been considered as the major factor for job satisfaction however other related
factors like promotion, fringe benefits, work efforts and the importance/challenge of the job are also
brought up in discussion by the employees.

Subjects of the present study were selected from managerial and non-managerial staff of public and
private sector banks from Pakistan.
A total of 50 subjects were selected equally from the five organizations selected for the study.

Table 1: Table below shows the count of employees that were interviewed for this purpose.

Group Count
HBL 12
Summit 8
ABL and UBL 20
Faysal Bank 5
HSBC 5
Total 50

Data from different interviews and over the phone discussions was gathered and compiled into an
excel sheets. A total compiled list of all the issues faced by employee was prepared and among these
the top 6 were selected to be part of this report.

6. Finding and Discussion

Our groups finding for Pakistan banking industry:

It was found that the top 6 major issues that exist in the banking industry with to employee and the
boss relationship are as follows:

1. Issue of bosses not trusting their employees

The top most issue that was highlighted to us by many of the employees was the issue
where bosses have very little trust in employees. This seemed to be a very common issue
when it comes to assigning big tasks for the first time. By trust we actually mean that
employees believe that their bosses do not have faith in them in having the task complete or
having the task complete on time, especially when the employee is new or the task is being
performed for the first time. Employees believe that they are being treated as a ‘child’ in
such kind of situation which causes brings a lot of frustration in employees.

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2. Issue of boss stealing employees credits.

Many of the employees had to say that they work longs hours for weeks and months and
when it come to the launch of the product or service , it the bosses who steal the credit by
dropping in an email stating this the product has been launched. These mails are usually
marked to the organization heads that only get to see the names of bosses and not the real
employees who worked on projects. Stealing credit is one of the most damaging of all bad
boss behaviours.  Stealing credit goes beyond not recognizing someone for a job well done. 
This is far worse.  This is taking the results of someone else’s ideas, performance and hard
work and claiming it as your own.  It is like identity theft for people in the workplace.

3. Issue of manager having very bad temperament

Employers believe that intimidate and manipulate people with the belief that somehow the
added fear will increase productivity and or respect. In reality, it causes people to lose
respect for the angry boss and in many cases can lead to confrontation in the future. The
other times it the disturbed personal life of boss and personal negative attitude towards life
which brings in a bad temperament in them. Almost all the bosses believe that pushing an
employee beyond limits with an bullying attitude would yield more work in less time.

4. Issue of delegating insufficient time for work

While bosses expect the work to be done on time there is no logical basis to decide how
much of the time it should require an employee for a particular type of task. When it comes
to assigning the task and the time bosses usually assume that employee have exactly
understood the nature of the task and that the duration that they are trying to push onto
the employee is enough to complete the task. Most of the time the task itself is not clear to
the boss himself as it would require detail level of discussion for which he himself doesn’t
have enough time. This results in a perfect chaos where in the end it the employee once
again who is to be blamed for the failure of completion of a specific task.

5. Issue of being acting in a very biased manner

Almost all managers or executives have a habit of playing favourites. It’s like bad breath.
Everyone knows it’s there except the person who has the problem. Managers justify it by
saying they are “raising them up” or that they are “team players”, but the real question is:
Are they being treated based on their performance or based on how they make the boss
feel? It seems that the old adage is often true: ‘It’s not what you know it’s who you know.’

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6. Issue of boss transferring the blame on employees

It is a general observation of employees that when it comes to taking the credit, bosses take
the lead and they put the employee at the face of the trouble when it comes to something
that went wrong.

Mentioned below are findings of a consultant with regards to mentioned topic for
employees around the world (reference URL mentioned in appendix):

1: Passive-Aggressive Behaviour
2: Hiding Behind E-Mails
3: Over-Valuing Privacy
4: Having to Always Be Right
5: Emotional Competence
6: Dealing with Micro Management

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7. Conclusion

It is a very common problem that human’s have issues with other human beings in terms of
understanding. The core reason being that all human’s are different in the way they behave and how
they look at world and other human being. It becomes even more difficult at professional places
where there is extreme pressure due to the targets set by the corporate world. Such problem also
exists in Pakistan’s corporate world and banking industry being of the great example. Our banking
industry is evolving and managers do have problem understanding the needs of their employees. In
order to survive in the cut-throat competition in today banking industry ( which is hit by a two sided
sword , one by the global economic meltdown and other due to political situation in Pakistan ) the
bankers must create an environment which cultivates good employee-boss/manager relationship.

Situation becomes worst in banks where the difference are cause due to :

1. Generation gaps (some employees being very young, between 25- 30 while others ranging
from the age of 45-50). HBL is a classic example of this case where multiple generation of
employee work together every day.

2. Foreign qualified (Pakistani or from outside Pakistan) manager is hired to manage resources.
NIB is classic example where CIO Mary James, an American National, was hired to manage
the IT department. Another example is of Mohib Ullah Yousufani who is the head of Islamic
Banking at Standard Chartered Bank who graduated from USA and return back to Pakistan
after 9/11.

3. People who are a great failure at personal life become manager at big designations.
Unfortunately banking industry has many of such example where :

a. Manager is a single parent ( widow/widower with no kids )

b. Manager who do not like to spend a lot of time at home due to some kind of family
dispute

c. Manager who have been shifted to another city and do not have a good social circle.

Such managers do not believe that employees have social life and would like to extract as
much work from employees as possible.

When the feelings become extreme, however, the situation usually gets out of hand. Staff may
sabotage productivity, communicate poorly, and, in general, make life miserable for those around
them.

Employees must be trained and made aware to deal and to over come such situations. Some of the
recommendations for handling such a situation are mentioned below.

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8. Recommendation

After discussing the problems of employees and compiling a comprehensive list of issues that
employees face in Banking industry of Pakistan. We then contact some of the bosses who have
experience of over 10 years in industry. These big names include:

1. Azimullah Khan the CIO of former Atlas Bank

2. Tahir Waqar Ali the CIO of former RBS bank

3. Dr. Khalid Amin who also happens to be instructor.

The idea behind this was to get the extract of their experience of managing employees for more
then 10 years and how to over the issues that employees face with their bosses. Our
recommendations are based on formal/informal discussions with

Talk-it-out:
The best thing an employee can do to improve the situation between himself and the boss is to talk
to them. Explain to them what their wants or needs are. Even if they don't share employee’s views,
perhaps they can agree to give them some of the things they want. A manager must create an
environment which is comfortable to work in. If they fail to do this, it could hurt the company in the
long run. Being insulting to bosses will only make things worse. One good thing they can do is ask
their boss how you can help them succeed.

Many employees have problems with their managers because they fail to communicate. They are
often under the impression that there is nothing they can do to improve the situation with their
managers. While this may be true, talking with them may also resolve the problem.

Speak to Manager’s Manager:

If they've done these things, and their boss is still difficult to work with, they will next want to speak
with their manager. It is best to have their co-workers to do this as well. If enough people complain
about the manager, the upper management will be forced to take action.

However, this should be done as a last resort.

Get transferred to another department/division:

Another thing employee can do is simply transfer to another area of the company. They can opt to
work under a different supervisor, and this may eliminate some of the problems they're having. If

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there are no other departments available for them to go to, it may be time to begin looking for
another job.

Look for a new job (last resort):

Finding a new job can be a tedious process, especially if you like the work you do. It should only be
used as the last option. In of the general discussions ( not specific to banking industry ) Dr Khalid
Amin advised a student who was having trouble maintaining good terms with his immediate boss :

“While leaving the current job in frustration, anger or depression may look easy but it
becomes very very difficult to find the next job once your are jobless”

9. Appendix and references:

C:\Documents and
Settings\mm186009\Desktop\hrm\Problems of employees.xls

Reference URL:

http://www.advisorone.com/article/fast-track-six-most-common-problems-employees?page=0,0

10. Bibliography

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