Younger and in charge

In the movie In Good Company, an advertising department head played by Dennis Quaid is forced to relinquish his managerial position to a twentysomething boss played by Topher Grace. Following this ignominy, the much younger boss then embarks on a romantic relationship with Quaid's on-screen daughter.

It's the stuff of middle-aged nightmares, but with more people working through their "golden years" having a boss who is 20, 30 or even 40 years younger is becoming more common. So what is it like? Do older workers treat much younger bosses like children? Can younger bosses successfully confront an employee who is 30 years older than they are? Do the different generations learn from each other?

I asked Marc Touchette, a 35-year-old field services manager for IT firm Unisys and his employee Bob Stewart, 61, a senior mainframe engineer, about their working relationship. Marc has been with the company for two years and Bob started with Unisys 45 years ago.

"In the 60s, the relationship between boss and employee was one of master and slave. The boss was older, you put him up on a pedestal and he was frequently unapproachable. That has gone to almost the other extreme, where bosses are now much younger, they are seen around the office and you can talk to them any time," says Stewart.

He says some younger bosses enjoy employing much older staff. "Older employees can tell a younger boss a lot about people - why they do the things they do. We also can have an opinion about things the business no longer has that we think should still be there," says Stewart.

For some young managers, this may be the last thing they want to hear. But Touchette says there's no getting away from the fact that older employees have seen more and so can be expected to have an opinion.

"The great thing is that whatever we throw at Bob he has probably seen it 20 times in his career. When Bob says, 'I saw that happen in 1982 and this is what happened' I find it quite helpful. What I have learned from Bob is that you can always get through issues if you don't panic and think calmly," says Touchette.

Touchette says other advantages of older employees include the observation they are more customer-oriented and have advanced troubleshooting skills that younger employees struggle to match.

Paul Muckleston, a 37-year-old sales and marketing director for Microsoft New Zealand, agrees. He says older employees are lower maintenance for a young manager. "Older employees have their egos in check and can be lower maintenance than younger people because they have figured out who they are and what they want from life. At the same time, you have to be open to feedback and be prepared to act on it because older employees are more confident to challenge you."

Muckleston says it is becoming common practice for managers to hire people who are older than they are and who have more experience. "The challenge is to realise that older people like to be managed differently. When I started out, I kind of naively thought people needed to be treated equally; if you do that you are going to annoy half the people. You have to have the self-confidence to treat people differently based on their needs and their individuality," says Muckleston.

He says among these differences is the right to challenge and the right to be heard. It can also be harder to keep mature people motivated because they are rarely there only to make money. "You can have some pretty heated discussions where you agree to disagree, but it is best to manage [older employees] by coaching rather than telling," he says.

Jan Ferguson, small business manager for Microsoft, works for Muckleston and is more than 10 years his senior. She says thanks to the right management approach she rarely notices the differences in their ages. "I do find younger bosses full of energy but, ultimately, age is in the mind and is about how you approach things," she says.

She says it is gratifying to know her experience counts. "Sometimes he will say, 'How should we approach this?' and I can contribute my knowledge of other times with other companies."

Stewart says working for Touchette has helped him to gain a different perspective on the business world. "Because I am getting to end of my time, I don't look forward towards where the business is going as much as he does. So we sit and talk and I say 'convince me' about a more modern approach and I do get a different perspective and that is valuable."

So are New Zealand organisations comfortable employing people of any age? What about training and health and safety costs? If the Auckland City Council is anything to go by, New Zealand organisations may be some of the best age champions in the world. For the past five years the council has employed Shirley Hampton, 71, full time in web marketing and communications.

"Absolutely everyone at the council is younger than I am and I report to a manager in his 30s," says Hampton.

She says when younger staff talk about things they are interested in the generational gap can be obvious, but otherwise the family atmosphere of her department renders such differences unimportant. Like Stewart, Hampton says the workplace is more relaxed than when she began work in 1950.

"The environment is friendly and [bosses] more approachable. I think older people bring stability and caring to a workplace. You are more sympathetic to what others are doing and thinking more of what is best for others," she says.

All managers interviewed for this article are prepared to continue to pay for ongoing training for their older employees. "Absolutely. My boss in Australia believes that as the mainframes are going we must cross-skill all the senior mainframe engineers," says Touchette.

"Some of those who have retrained have become the best engineers [of modern systems] in the company - and they have a lot of clout because of their customer experience."

Hampton says her web skills were self-taught on the job, but the council supported her early efforts and listened when she suggested improvements.

"They would show me something and I would think through what was happening with it and get it clear in my mind. Then I found an even better way of doing it," she says.

Unisys' Stewart has a word for employers who may be shaking their heads in disbelief at the thought of employing and training anyone over 65.

"Some employers think that when you get to a certain age your brain goes dead. But you are always learning and your experience can't be beaten. Just because you have been somewhere 45 years doesn't mean you are 45 years stale."

Presumably, young managers are also less likely to lose valuable older staff to the "big OE".

Managing the generation gap

For managers

* Don't be disappointed or hurt if an older employee doesn't share your enthusiasm for a project - they may have seen a similar idea fail in the past. Find out what their reservations are.

* Don't be too quick to label a lukewarm response from an older employee "cynicism". It won't be appreciated.

* Be prepared to be challenged. As long as the dialogue is respectful, questioning or disagreement from an older employee can produce a quality collaborative effort.

* Don't assume an older employee is not ambitious - offer training and career development options and ensure performance management reviews are conducted with the career and personal development of the individual as a focus.

For older employees

* Never use the phrases "when you get to my age you'll understand" or "'you wait, you'll see I'm right" with a younger boss.

* Be diligent about what you can learn, personally and professionally from your younger boss.

* Respect the fact that while you may not agree with your younger boss, the company trusted their judgment and ability enough to have put them in charge.

* If challenges arise with a younger boss, cast your mind back to the kind of person you were at the same age.

* Be open to retraining and upskilling; be open to the fact that, experience aside, there are times you may be wrong.

* Look for ways that you and your boss can support each other.