What annoys your boss? Young Professional Challenge

A survey of over 200 employers has been carried out to see the biggest bugbears employers have. You might be surprised at some of them, but here’s what not to do if you want to keep your boss on your side.

The biggest bugbears that bosses have with their employees include:

  1. Showing up to work late – 54.2%
  2. Complaining to colleagues instead of discussing problems with their boss – 41.2%
  3. Not taking responsibility for their mistakes – 39.9%
  4. Messing around during work hours – 32.7%
  5. Spreading gossip – 29.4%
  6. Not being a team player – 28.8%
  7. Communicating only over email – 21.6%
  8. Making ridiculous demands – 14.4%
  9. Not being grateful for the rewards they receive- 6.5%
  10. Sucking-up to the boss – 2%

Young Professional Skills:

Your Young Professional training can help with some of things:

Complaining to colleagues: you need to be able to manage and deal with conflict

Showing up late for work: You need to work on your organisation skills

Not taking responsibility for your mistakes: take a look at accountability and how you can improve yours.

Messing around during work hours: you have to work out the reason for this, it is that you aren’t managing your time properly and have spare time to mess around or do you need to ask for help?

Not being a team player: working in a team can be really hard, there are lots of new personalities to get to know and there is a lot of work that goes into understanding how you can all work together.

Communicating only over email: It can take time to learn but you have to know what conversations are better face to face, over email and feel confident to bring subjects up with your boss, boost your communication skills here.

Making ridiculous demands: now this is one that doesn’t have much context. Is a ridiculous demand asking for a Unicorn? It is worth thinking about how you are perceived, if you are constantly asking for exceptions and time off (without giving valid reasons) it can make you appear difficult. If you do need special circumstances be polite, ask with lots of notice and explain why (if you feel comfortable). A ridiculous demand is probably one that hasn’t been explained properly!

Your Challenge:

If you haven’t already, take the Young Professional test! You’ll receive a certificate via email so you’ll have something to prove your skills.

If you have already completed it, read through the learning again and think about how you can use the content to improve your skills in education or work.

Next steps:

  • Find out more about being a Young Professional here
  • If you aren’t sure which job is for you yet, why not explore our careers hub 

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