I’m 29 and manage a 55-year-old – it’s like telling off my dad

Britain is facing a major turning point in its workforce. According to research, the number of workers aged 65 and over has nearly tripled since 2000, from 457,000 to 1.43 million today. More than one in nine workers in the UK are now working past their 65th birthday, compared with one in 20 back in 2000. The soaring cost of living and the rising state pension age have a lot to do with it. In April this year, the age at which millions of workers can start claiming the state pension rose from 66 to 67, and it is due to rise again to 68 under current legislation. While some say they cannot afford to quit their jobs, others say work keeps them young. Regardless, the new reality is that record numbers of people are now working into their sixties, seventies, and even beyond. While a multi-generational workforce can drive innovation, fresh perspectives and blend diverse life experiences, there can also be tension, especially as people find themselves managing far older colleagues. Here, three anonymous workers reveal what it’s really like working with, and managing, older people. Shorts ‘There’s a weird mental disconnect when giving feedback to someone old enough to be your dad’ Lisa*, 29, London I’m in my late twenties and I work at a large engineering company where I manage five people; the oldest is 55. I’ve been at the company for seven years and have been promoted five times, which has meant moving into positions above people who are older than me, and in some cases, have been at the company much longer. Generally the dynamic is really good and I genuinely like the people I manage. Most of the “awkwardness” actually comes from me, as sometimes I’ll be giving advice or direction and suddenly become very aware that I’m 29 and talking to someone with 20 or 30 years’ more life and work experience than me. There are funny moments where they’ll mention something their adult children are doing and we’ll all become acutely aware I’m the same age as their kids. I’m often compared with their children and told I’m much more mature than they are. There’s a weird mental disconnect when giving difficult managerial feedback to someone who’s old enough to be your dad. Or having to chase something repeatedly or have a conversation about the standard of someone’s work in performance reviews. They always take feedback well, though. Sometimes I wonder if they’re braver in challenging me, which I feel happens a lot, because I’m younger. I wonder if they take me less seriously or respect me less. But ultimately I think we should all be able to challenge our bosses, so I try not to see it as a negative. I also like to think I cultivate an environment where people can openly and honestly raise their questions and concerns – something I would say is a generational difference, too. They have a level of experience and perspective that I simply can’t have and I think I’d be a terrible manager if I pretended otherwise. Particularly in a big company, people who’ve been around longer often have a huge amount of institutional knowledge. They understand the history behind some decisions, know how some things actually work, certain nuances, and have relationships across the business that are incredibly valuable. They make my job much easier! ‘There is a level of respect l don’t really receive from the older people I manage’ Amanda*, 34, London My experience of managing older colleagues has been terrible. Age discrimination is a thing and I have had it in every role I’ve worked in. I also look so much younger than I am, which doesn’t help. I work as the head of communications in the public sector and when I first started at my company, I was 28 managing a team of five, including two older people. One was about 60, and the other was about 50 – so double my age. I ended up being promoted twice, and that’s how I ended up managing my 60-year-old colleague, who has been in the organisation for 20 years. They were clearly exhausted, had mentally checked out of their career, and had been underperforming for about five years preceding me being in the managerial role. It had never previously been addressed because this person was established and had been with the organisation for a very long time. I quickly realised I was having to pick up a lot of their slack and they were completely unfit for the role for so many reasons. Mainly, the company had changed a lot since they’d joined. I had to address all of these issues through a performance plan, which is incredibly difficult to do with someone twice your age. This person completely disengaged and made very personal comments about me and how l’d landed the role. There was one instance, in a social setting, where they made an Islamophobic comment towards me. There was a level of political correctness and respect l never really received from the older people I managed. They ended up being a lost cause. It became really difficult and we had to go through a formal process because they didn’t meet their performance plan. We eventually had to let them go. As for the 50-year-old, they constantly challenged me to validate why my decisions were credible. There were also cultural differences; they had got used to working from the office just one day a week, but I tried to get them into the office more. That person also ended up leaving. For a while, I doubted myself and wondered if I was the common denominator. But I have now been at the company for six years. I have a new, younger team and they’re very happy and we have a common vision and a culture where we’re all ambitious, high-performing and kind to each other. I’ve been given good appraisals for my leadership since then. ‘I manage an older freelancer – the same work he struggles to complete in a week gets done by a 23-year-old in two hours’ Chris*, 38, Manchester I’m a lead architect at a large firm and we regularly employ freelancers to help with overflow work, who I end up managing. If they have the experience, drive and tenacity to do it, then age doesn’t matter. It’s more about the best person for the job, irrespective of someone’s age. We have a freelancer, who I’ve worked with a couple of times before, in his late fifties. He has a bad attitude, never really listens to the brief, and has a chip on his shoulder – presumably because he is being managed by people much younger than him. Both me and another, younger, senior colleague have found him difficult to work with. Recently, we had him on a last-minute project. When I was doing the onboarding, he kept repeatedly asking questions that I had already communicated clearly, and started doing the wrong work, which indicated that he hadn’t been listening. He frequently missed deadlines and we found his work to be sub-standard. He made underhand comments to other members of the senior team saying that my “feedback is all over the shop”, when really it’s his lack of ability to listen. I’ve also worked with younger people who are a nightmare, though, so it could just be his personality, not age. The trouble is that there are so many passionate, hungry, young people out there. At the end of the full week – which should have been plenty of time – he still hadn’t finished the job. We handed it over to one of our in-house team, who is 23, and he completed it in two hours. I’m not sure if this is a trend with older workers, but this freelancer is supposed to be a specialist and he only does one type of work – whereas most younger workers are multifaceted and can bounce between many specialties. He struggled with taking feedback and found it difficult to multi-task, pushing back on everything, saying it “wasn’t possible”. We’re a tight team and we work fast so it’s very noticeable when someone’s not performing or is a weak link. We won’t be working with him again.