Worker Satisfaction Tied to Middle Managers’ Relationship with Supervisors
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Moodboard/Thinkstock(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — If employers want to improve worker satisfaction, they’re advised not to cut out the middleman.
More specifically, a Vanderbilt University study contends that a real trickle-down theory likely exists at most workplaces in that a supervisor’s relationship with the middle manager directly affects lower-level employees.
Study author Ray Friedman, with colleagues from other schools, examined the dynamic of 1,500 full-time workers at 94 U.S. hotels and discovered that “middle managers’ satisfaction with their senior managers was related positively to line employees’ satisfaction with middle managers.”
Conversely, if a supervisor has a poor relationship with a middle manager, the people on the rung below are often likely to be disgruntled.
Expanding the trickle-down theory even further, other studies have shown that businesses with a high rate of turnover will have lower customer satisfaction.
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