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Overseeing Workers Who Are Closer in Age to Your
Parents
By Sarah E.
Needleman
When job candidates come in to
interview at CertaPro Painters in Niagara Falls N.Y., a look of surprise
often immediately appears on their faces. "They walk in the door and
say, 'Oh, young guy,' " explains Dominic Ventresca, the franchise
company's 23-year-old owner. "They question my authority."
Mr. Ventresca is not alone
navigating the challenges of recruiting and managing workers who are
closer in age to their parents. Professionals in their 20s held 10% of
management positions in 2005 at companies with less than 500 employees,
about the same as in 2002, according to the U.S. Small Business
Administration.
But that number is likely to
rise greatly in coming years at firms of all sizes, says Ed Reilly,
president and chief executive officer of the American Management
Association in New York. He expects a greater number of older
professionals to pursue contributing roles instead of leadership
positions as their personal goals shift from climbing the corporate
ladder. Rather, their focus will move to supplementing savings or
staying active, he says.
Among the skills young
managers and entrepreneurs need to manage older workers are the ability
to listen and be open-minded, says Justin Schaldone, a 25-year-old
director of marketing at eFashion Solutions Inc., an e-commerce company
in Secaucus, N.J. If an older employee disagrees with your way of doing
things, offer to hear the person out, he advises. Because they typically
have more work experience under their belt, older workers may be more
comfortable with a method they've previously used, he explains.
When an older subordinate
offered an alternative to one of Mr. Schaldone's directives last fall,
he suggested trying both processes and comparing the results. His
approach proved to be the most effective, and the employee was
impressed, he says. "Giving people the opportunity to have some say into
how we do things has been a good way for me to gain respect from the
people who work for me," he says.
Still, young bosses may need
to lay down the law at some point. Jaylaan Llewellyn had an employee 12
years her senior create a marketing plan which she didn't like. When Ms.
Llewellyn, founder and chief executive of independent record label
bluhammock music, asked for changes, the employee became
confrontational.
"He had been doing this for
years and said that this is what a marketing plan is supposed to look
like," says Ms. Llewellyn, 27. While she didn't doubt his methods as
being conventionally accepted, she says, she had her own vision and had
to be firm to protect it. "There's a delicate balance between being a
young person know-it-all and cow-towing to somebody else's experience,"
she says. "I try and walk a line, but also stay true to what I think is
right for my company."
Young managers should avoid
making their age known or discussing it in the workplace, says Mr.
Ventresca, who bought his franchise in late 2005 by taking out a loan
and tapping into savings earned from a landscaping business he ran
during college. "[For older workers], realizing that you're 30 years
older than your boss is not a happy thought," he says. "I'm proud of my
accomplishments, but it's not something I need to broadcast."
For young managers, enlisting
older professionals to work beneath them often requires strong
self-confidence. Edward Smolyansky, 27, says he worried about
prospective hires' impressions of his youthfulness in interviews when he
started his job as the chief financial officer of Lifeway Foods Inc. in
Morton Grove, Ill., five years ago. "I was thinking, are they
uncomfortable? Do they think that they'd be coming to work for just some
kid out of college who sees this as a game?" he recalls.
Mr. Smolyansky and his
32-year-old sister Julie, Lifeway's chief executive officer, inherited
their roles when their father, the company's founder, died in 2002.
Since then, Mr. Smolyansky says he's learned to quell his age-related
anxiety because it can cloud his judgment. "You don't want to let those
fears get in the way," he says. "At end of the day, your job is not to
coddle someone who is older than you. Your job is to get the best
employee for that position."
At start-up firms, Ms.
Llewellyn says older candidates may be more comfortable taking on
consulting positions. "They don't want their professional value to drop,
especially if the company doesn't survive," she says. "Offering to have
them work as a consultant allows you to prove to them it's worth it to
take a risk." This set up also allows these workers to supplement their
incomes with other jobs since start-ups typically cannot afford to pay
experienced hires high salaries, she adds.
Young managers can benefit
greatly from forming a relationship with a mentor, says Aaron Brown, who
joined International Business Machines Corp. as a researcher at age 29.
He was promoted to team leader after about one year and has since moved
up to program director at the technology company's Somers, N.Y., office.
Mr. Brown says regular
conversations with his mentor, a former senior manager at IBM who now
consults for the company, helped him build confidence in his ability to
lead a team of six workers, of whom half are much older than he is. "He
talked me through a number of situations he had been in where he had
become a leader of more experienced people," says Mr. Brown. "I drew a
lot of strength from that."
-- Ms. Needleman is
associate editor at CareerJournal.com.
-- June 21, 2007 |
