Why bosses in one part of the US are better-liked than managers anywhere else

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Happy at work

Sebastiaan ter Burg/Flickr

About a third (32%) of employees in the West gave their boss an "A" rating.

In terms of employer quality, the West is best, according to one study.

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Employees in the Western part of the United States rated their bosses higher than average in a CareerBuilder survey conducted by Harris Poll among 3,031 adult workers.

An impressive 32% of Western-based bosses garnered an "A." In comparison, only 23% of workers in the Northeast gave their bosses an "A."

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In total, 62% of all survey respondents gave their employer an "A" or a "B" grade.

So, what's the reason behind this regional difference of 10 percentage points? Are bosses in places like California, Arizona, and Oregon really better? Or are their employees just nicer on surveys?

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CareerBuilder chief human resources officer Rosemary Haefner says that the data shows a correlation between high ranks for bosses out West and reduced face-to-face employer-employee interaction.

More workers in the West only meet with their boss in person once a week or less, and more employers in the West are based out of a different office than their employees.

"Our workforce may be shifting toward a preference for bosses that take a more hands-off approach - and those in the West seem to have picked up on that," Haefner says.

In the West, 69% employees also feel that their bosses provide useful feedback, ten percentage points up from the Northeast, where a third of employees "believe their boss should not be in a leadership role." Only 23% of Western workers agree with this sentiment.

The survey also found that bosses are crucial in employee retention. About a third of respondents blamed their manager for causing them to leave a job. Fortunately, only 6% of respondents gave their boss an "F" in the survey.

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