Many years ago, I was working in a company where there was a dynamic IT Manager, who was in his twenties. I’ll call him Martin. Martin was highly qualified in his field and very interested in Artificial Intelligence. The job he had looking after our computer system was a doddle as far as he was concerned. And he was bored. One day Martin was caught sending extremely derogatory emails to his friends about the stupidity and uselessness of the ladies in the sales team, who struggled with using certain aspects of the computer system.
Martin failed to appreciate the other skills, knowledge and expertise his colleagues displayed every day in their work and focused entirely on things as they looked from his perspective. Older women were a pain and he showed them no respect. Fortunately, Martin wasn’t their direct line manager and his own manager intervened to ensure Martin learned from his error of judgement. He learned about valuing all colleagues for their respective skills and contribution to the team, regardless of age. Martin is now nearing middle age himself!
Perspective is what matters when managing people of a different age to yourself. Making assumptions about what someone can’t - or can - do because of their age is not only wrong but detrimental to the working of the team.
We tend to stereotype people by their age - and we label them too: baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials and nowadays the i-Generation, for people in the workplace born after 1994. It might be a convenient shorthand for describing an age group and we might tend to want to group people in this way, but since each person is an individual, making assumptions is unhelpful.
There was a time when I noticed I was always about the youngest person in the room in meetings. Nowadays, I notice that I am nearly always the oldest! Do people treat me differently now to how they did when I first started work? Yes, I think they do, albeit unconsciously.
If you have people in your team who are older or younger than you, how do you manage them? Is there any unconscious bias in the way you treat them at work?
The WATCH & GO® video ‘Managing the Older Worker’ illustrates how easy it is to fall into the trap of making false assumptions about people because of their age. And it shows how important it is to treat everyone exactly the same. If an older worker is not performing as you need, then you must explore this in the same way as you would for a younger person. You don’t need to make allowances for age alone. Nor must you assume that because someone is older they are not up-to-date with the latest developments or not keen to continue to develop their skills. You need to be in touch with the hopes, desires and interests of each member of your team and not allow your unconscious bias to colour your judgement.
The ‘One to Watch’ featured video for October is ‘Managing the Older Worker’ and takes just a couple of minutes to view.
Watch the video here now.
About WATCH & GO® videos
WATCH & GO® videos show people how to perform better at work by illustrating practical phrases and key behaviours in just a few minutes. There are around 60 titles, each dealing with a different management topic or ‘tricky’ situation. Learners simply ‘watch’ and ‘go’ to manage everyday situations at work. www.watchandgovideos.co.uk @WatchGoVideos video@scottbradbury.co.uk +44 (0)1638 723590