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Managing older workers? Eliminate the stereotypes
You may have a lot of younger workers, but that doesn’t mean you can afford to neglect your older workforce. Baby Boomers may have skills and attitudes that younger workers haven’t mastered yet. Here are some tips on effectively managing older workers:
Address your attitude first. Eliminate stereotypes from your thinking, positive or negative. You may believe older employees are harder workers, or that they’re just waiting for retirement. Treat every employee as an individual without jumping to conclusions based on age. Stereotypes often keep us from tapping talent.
Give them feedback. Many younger managers are a little hesitant to give older workers feedback. But remember that older workers need to know their value to a team or the importance of their work. And they need to know where and how they need to improve.
Consider making them mentors. Older workers have a mountain of experience. Make use of it. They can help steer younger workers though minefields that are never written in the company policy manual, and they can provide insights based on their own successes and failures.
Employees need to know they can ask questions
Do your employees come to you for advice when they hit a roadblock at work? If so, be thankful.
According to a survey of British employees conducted by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and the British Library, 85 percent of workers would go somewhere else—seemingly anywhere else—before asking their supervisors for help.
The good news (if there is any): Only 23 percent said they turn elsewhere because they don’t trust their boss’s judgment or ability to help. Instead, 48 percent said they didn’t want to bother their managers, while 30 percent said they were afraid of looking incompetent, and 20 percent worried about being judged negatively for not knowing what to do.
Remind employees that you’re there to assist them, and don’t punish them for asking reasonable questions. Your job is to enable them to do their jobs.
Don’t take the either/or approach to conflict
In any employee/manager conflict, the manager seems to have all the power. Most of the time, a good manager tries to maintain a positive relationship even in the face of deep disagreement. The alternative—forcing employees to “Do it my way” or get fired—is rarely constructive.
Try to avoid such either/or situations and take an approach that brings you together. Find something in the situation that you can agree on, and use that as the basis for a solution: “Both you and I want this project to succeed, so let’s work together to find a way that works.” Then listen to the employee. You don’t have to give up your authority, but you do need to let the employee know you take his or her concerns seriously. This should motivate the employee to consider your point of view more honestly. Then, even if you disagree, you can start from a point of mutual interest.
Chances are neither of you wants to prolong a conflict, so the dialogue can begin a process of cooperation instead of continued conflict.
Do your instructions produce the intended results?
When you tell employees what you want them to do, be sure to focus on the right tasks. Here’s a story: One company decided that customer responsiveness was its priority. Managers instructed employees to answer every phone call on the second ring. They emphasized the rule until employees got it right.
Then they noticed that their workers were indeed answering every call on the second ring—but immediately putting the caller on hold while they took care of other calls first. Customers experienced significant and frustrating delays because of the “second ring” rule.
Think through the consequences when you tell workers what to do. You’ll likely avoid problems down the line.
