Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

Does your company have an arrangement in place to “mould” your new intakes into the kinds of employees you need them to be? If YES, what about your older and more experienced hands already in the system? What arrangement do you have in place for them?

How does your company treat older hands (especially those with lower qualifications), compared to new, often younger intakes?

Decision makers in companies can sometimes get carried away. As some employees age out, if they do not become “high-flyers” or super-achievers, they tend to get forgotten by those who run the company.

1. Neglecting Older Hands Can Often Backfire On Your Company!

That’s the truth – and it can happen quite subtly, until the damage has gone far, before you notice.

I say this as one who had to relate, as a bright-eyed new intake in a large corporation, with many much older hands. They felt they’d been sidelined, career-wise, and did not hide their frustration, or resentment. In the end, it affected their commitment to their jobs, and to coaching new intakes.

See how it can backfire…? And that’s just one example. I highlight others further down.

This is why I believe experienced managers – the older hands who’ve been on the job a while – need to be given incentives to stay committed to their jobs. Recognition, coupled with well planned training and development opportunities can often go a long way in this regard.

We must remember that – unlike the new entrants – older hands would have achieved some successes, but possibly reached a point where no foreseeable opportunities exist for further upward advancement.

This could naturally cause them to simply stop pushing themselves to perform optimally.

If they get passed over by way of attention, for new and bright eyed intakes to the company, the chances of the above happening greatly increase.

Your company needs a team – a well oiled team, to perform well. You therefore want ALL members to continually pitch in with their best efforts. Be they new, old; experienced or inexperienced.

To achieve the above, you must promote the “growth and nourishment” of your older and more experienced employees, alongside you fresh recruits arriving gleaming credentials, and youthful energy.

2. Older & Experienced Managers When Unhappy, May Choose Not to Share ALL They Know

Some decision makers forget this: Your young, smart recruits will often need to understudy the older hands they meet on the job. If the latter are not happy, that relationship may not go as well as you’d like.

Experienced managers offer a rich pool of talent, creativity and contribution, which if properly harnessed could be used to win the company’s battle for survival and success.

The older employees could conveniently “forget” to share powerful experience based wisdom they’ve acquired over the years. Your new “stars” would thus be faced with the need to re-invent the wheel!

3.  They Could Even Make Your New/Younger Employer Unhappy…and Ineffective!

It could be worse: Older and experienced employees can often heavily influence the climate of opinion in an organisation. They are the ones who have seen it all, been there while it all happened, and will usually have a lot to tell the newer managers about what works and what does not.

In fact, by virtue of their relative age and experience advantage, even when they occupy low formal positions in the company, they can often end up playing informal leadership roles.

By implication therefore, an organisation unfortunate enough to have disgruntled older employees in her ranks, could find it rather difficult to effectively implement a new strategy or initiative.

The dangers could in fact be more, if you fail to create conditions enabling for your experienced employees to improve themselves, and become more open minded to better methods.

For instance, they could isolate (perhaps even “emotionally crush”) your newer/younger employees!

What You Can Do

Fortunately, with good leadership and guidance, coupled with the regular implementation of training and development initiatives, you can keep the loyalty of your older hands.

Simply create a culture in which they constantly feel valued and respected. Actively recognise and acknowledge them for all they have done in the past, and for roles they still play.

Involve them in areas you know they can make useful contributions, and support initiatives and ideas they originate. No sentiments of course. What you accept must be those that truly add tangible value.

As often as practical, organise well structured training and development sessions for them, to enhance their ability to function as workplace coaches, towards sharing what they know with others.

Do the above, and more where possible.

Then watch them motivate, develop and control themselves to cooperate with new people you bring in, towards achieving the company’s valued goals.