How much sense do rank-and-file employees have of what is going on at the Executive Level? We’ve all wondered what secret plans are being bandied about in the executive suite that we aren’t privvy to. It turns out many do have an opinion of how the executives are functioning at the company where they work, as many of us will simply put our fingers to the wind, judge how well the company’s fates are lining up, and either blame or praise those in the C-Suite accordingly. Whether this is entirely fair is a culture question for another day. Today we’re looking at the responses we got to the question, “Do you approve of the job your executive team is doing at your company?”
Results are courtesy of an ongoing study by Comparably. More than 10,000 employees reposnded to the question.
Nearly 2/3rds of respondents say they approve of the way execs are running their company. Scores were dead even on this matter from both genders.
Responses when sorted by ethnicity were similar to the overall average.The Hispanic/Latinos were one percentage point above the norm; the Asian/Pacific Islanders were two percentage points under the norm. African-Americans and Caucasians were in line with each other.
There’s a wide spread of results when the data is divvied up by the department the employees source from. HR was the most enthusaistically positive about their executives at 77%, but it may be that HR workers are expected to the toe the company line more fervently than other departments. The executives themselves rate their executives highly as well, which may either mean they’re biased or that they have a more forgiving sense of an executive’s role being one themselves. On the other end are Operations and IT, who can often be counted on – for whatever reason – to doubt a company’s status quo.
The younger the worker, the more likely they approved of the movements of the C-suite. This may imply that the longer one works, the more examples one has of good and bad executive management to reflect on. After dropping slightly with each increased age group, a serious dip happens for workers between 51-65. These workers may be approaching the age of many execs themselves, which may color their judgment.
The same downward trend occurs as experience accrues. Again, this implies that more seasoned workers feel more comfortable criticizing how executives are running the game. Workers who have been in the field for more than 10 years begin to approach just 50% exec approval.
Latest reading as of March 27.
