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27 October 2015
When Shawn VanDerziel became a manager a decade ago, he inherited a large,
motivated workforce of people who truly cared about their roles. The only
complication: most of them were approaching or well beyond pension age.
VanDerziel, now 44 years old and chief human resources officer for the Field
Museum in the US city of Chicago, admitted that at first he had a lot to learn
about managing older workers.
They are more independent, VanDerziel said, and they don t need constant
feedback about how they re doing. More than anything, he said he s learned
about when to back off.
As a younger manager, you might think you have a better way to do something,
but you have to learn to respect older workers and the fact that they have
developed a system, VanDerziel said. Allow them to do it their way and show
them some respect.
VanDerziel s challenge of dealing with a mature workforce can be a difficult
one for younger managers who have inherited older employees or who have
advanced faster than their peers. And, there are few rules on how to proceed.
The reality in most organisations is that the average age of workers is
increasing, said Dirk van Dierendonck, professor of human resource management
at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands. Anybody new to
leadership will have to figure out how to manage older workers.
Tailored approach
Many new managers who find themselves overseeing people who are their parents
age will make lots of mistakes. Often, younger bosses will use the same
management style they d use with millennials, but that's not necessarily the
best approach.
Allow them to do it their way and show them some respect.
While younger workers favour regular feedback, older workers will see that as
meddling and intrusive, van Dierendonck said. Some veteran members of your team
also may dislike the less-structured hours and more open workspaces regularly
requested by millennials.
Another challenge is that older workers often feel comfortable challenging a
young manager s authority, often right from the start. The answer is to resist
being confrontational. Instead, show the older worker that you respect them and
the experience they bring, van Dierendonck said.
Whether you re working with the office cleaner or the CEO, the best approach
is to engage that person on a personal level, said Steve Greenwood, executive
director of the Ireland-based Berkley Group, which specialises in recruitment
and talent management. That person won t care about your goals and help you
achieve them unless you have developed a relationship.
That s not as easy with older workers, who don t always have the same
motivations and goals as their younger counterparts. The kinds of management
training programmes that might be valued by new hires may be of no use to those
approaching pension age.
Instead, older workers may find more value in being asked to mentor younger
counterparts, Greenwood said. That s good for the company, because your older
workforce is passing on much-needed knowledge, and it s good for the veterans,
because it shows the manager values their experience.
And, those managers are also more likely to retain talent, van Dierendonck
said. Baby boomers are more committed to the companies that employ them and are
less likely to leave for new jobs.
If you re building your company or department for the long run, it may be more
profitable to invest in people who are invested in the organisation, van
Dierendonck said. You re more likely to see that investment from older
workers.
Greater productivity?
Many new bosses assume veteran employees will be less productive than their
younger counterparts, often mistaking their more calculated approach for
sluggishness. But in fact, van Dierendonck said, experienced workers often
complete tasks more quickly.
Whether you re working with the office cleaner or the CEO, the best approach is
to engage that person on a personal level.
There s also this surprise: older workers often have the big breakthroughs. If
you consider that entrepreneurs are often over 40, you have to assume that
older workers have a lot they can bring to your company, van Dierendonck said.
We have an idea that entrepreneurs are younger because of Bill Gates and Steve
Jobs, but that s rare. Almost always, big ideas come from older people.
The best managers know how to achieve a balanced management style. For
instance, at the Field Museum, VanDerziel learned to ignore the idea that older
workers didn t want feedback. Sure, they don t want the same daily or maybe
even hourly feedback needed by many millennials, VanDerziel said, but they do
want to know when something they re doing is wrong.
They re also not going to take that criticism personally, VanDerziel said.
With millennials, you might want to put feedback in context, to give them
compliments first.