Come Recommended: As we begin to see a generation gap in the workplace, it can be difficult for Millennial employees and their senior counterparts to interact.
Managing Gen X and the Baby Boomers isn’t uncommon for Millennial managers these days. However, what is common is the misperception of how these employees need “special treatment.” Some Millennial managers feel they have to be careful or patient with their older employees, giving them special treatment to meet their “special needs.”
10 comments:
This article made me think about the number of times that I have had to manage a production in which I was the youngest, or one of the youngest employees. At first, it was a little intimidating. After doing it a few times, though, it has become more normal. I reached that point by doing exactly what this article said. You have to know what skills each team member has, and know how to use those skills effectively. You also have to treat the older members of your team or company with the same level of respect as the rest of the members, and hold everyone to the same standards. I particularly liked the quote at the end of the article, "Remember, being an effective manager is about building a team that fits the culture of your company. " In theater, we will have to work with people half our age, and people twice our age, often at the same time. The key to keeping all of those work relationships healthy is to manage everyone in the same way, without making special cases for someone just because of their age. If you treat everyone on the team as equals, you will end up gaining the respect of your team or company, which will make the production that much more successful.
This reminds me of in the army when you are a commander and you have a variety of soldiers on your team.
Some are older and more experienced and some are new and almost useless.
When working in a team, you want to achieve the best results. I think that this means that you do have to treat people a bit differently and use every single person's advantage while helping them improve their disadvantages. Sure everyone deserves the same respect and such but I think that different people have different needs and therefore should be treated a bit differently.
It's not common these days to have a manager who is younger than you or to be managing a person who is 10-20 years older than you. I have a friend who's sister manages a band and has older employees. She often has a difficult time managing her employees because of the difference in age. The thing she needs to remember the most is that she's the manager and its her job to run the business and manage her employees no matter who they are as an individual. Some employers also have a problem with gender, age, race, and religion when it comes to management, but in reality we are all people working for a similar goal in mind.
I can relate the feelings that might come with being a younger manager because as a small, young-looking, girl people sometimes don't believe I can be taken seriously. In one of my college interviews, the interviewer told me that while artistically I might be a good fit for the program, he wasn't sure I would be able to handle it emotionally. It is important that when people are resistant to taking you seriously because of something like age or appearance, you force them to reconsider. Most of the focus of this article is about how to behave when in this position and I think that the ideas presented are valuable. In order to gain the respect of older employees, treating them without age in mind will allow them to take you more seriously as a manager. As the article says, work ethic is what is most important and if you demonstrate that attitude as a manager, your relationship with your employees will be stronger.
Wow this article sounds like it was written for everyone who works in the tech industry. In San Fransisco there are a ton of new employees of Google and Facebook that are in there 20's and have started to work high powered jobs and make tons of money. These people have changed the city by forcing prices up and changing what age group has influence and power. This article actually makes me sort of mad because it makes it seems as though older people can't keep up with anything new that is happening but if you (the young person who knows nothing) takes the time to coddle them through the process then they will get it. I think that it is important to know how to manage people older if you are young, because that is how the work place shakes out sometimes, but I don't think the take home message should be "wait for your older employees to catch up they will work really hard and do it eventually."
Immediately this article seemed like it would be useful for myself. Because entering the industry when I am not at school, I will almost instantly be working with older people, whether I am below them on the tree or above them. One of the biggest things I learn over the past summer when working with almost all of the senior staff that was older then me was to just trust the process. Does not matter what the problem is, the process will see me through. If a challenged arouse that was out of scope of my experience and needed discussion I would take it to the group and then govern the solution to fit with in the process. Evaluating the solution at the end of the day for labor cost, monetary cost, and time. There are good points in the article but the article just seemed to me to be written by someone who not actually managed older people. Either way good things to think about.
This is always an interesting process. But it's not always an issue. My first professional job I had my own intern who was 7 years older than me and while I knew he didn't like it, I was much more qualified than he was and it quickly became evident to everyone as well. I think if this happens to people the smartest thing is to keep communication going between both parties but remember that as long as you are qualified for the position people will listen. If you are in the right spot for the job then you shouldn't worry about having people older than you working under you. There is a reason behind it.
As others have already posted, this is something that we will all likely encounter in the entertainment industry after leaving the higher education setting.
This article surprised me as it left out what I seem to think is one of the most important concepts when working with employees that are older than you:
Chances are that when you are working with/above somebody who is older than you, they will have enormous amounts of real work experience that even the best educational institutions will never be able to provide you.
While a manager may have a lot of technical and theoretical information to share will older employees, chances are that they will have much more practical and "real-world" knowledge to give back.
Honestly I think that the idea of managing someone older than you is more intimidating than actually doing so. And I always approach these situations with the mentality of dont make a problem exist until there is one. Sometimes a problem may arise and you handle it accordingly, with professionalism and poise. But trust the process and treat everybody the same.
With the field we are all going into, we will all eventually have to deal with what this article is discussing. I haven't had to deal with this situation quite yet, but I feel it's a great thing to keep in mind. I have often thought of what would happen in this situation if I was in charge, however, I never could think of the right way to figure out what I would do. This article put my thoughts into fruition, as well as giving more depth and meaning to the thoughts I had. I know that learning things like this is more easy to do from experience, but just having basics, like what this article discusses, is definitely a useful tool to keep in mind.
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