Managing Older Workers
Posted February 1st, 2011
The world of work has changed since many of today’s older workers started out in the workforce. Many people today change careers more often, requiring that they start in a staff position (rather than management) as they grow their new skills. Or older workers may have been laid off from a position they’ve held for several years and end up taking a job that’s not quite as high on the management ladder as the one they just left.
Which means that that may be older than their supervisors.
Peter Cappelli, professor at the Wharton School of Business and coauthor of Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order, believes supervisors then have two issues to deal with:
- Being “afraid” of managing someone older than themselves.
- Finding excuses not to hire the older worker to begin with or, if they do, allowing their “fear” of managing someone with more experience to mean they won’t hold the older worker accountable (“Joan knows more about this than I do. I certainly can’t tell her what to do!”) So they ignore the older worker.
Cappelli recommends organizations do away with a “top-down” management style, the usual “I’m the boss, so you do as I say.” Instead, according to Cappelli, companies should create a culture where supervisors and staff work in a true teamwork environment, one in which supervisors engage subordinates’ input, advice and one in which managers bring their staff members in on goal-setting activities.
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