Culture toolkit — line management — supporting older employees to develop

Over 50s and career development

There is often a false assumption that over 50s are not interested in career progression. This can mean that they miss out on development opportunities.

There is plenty of research that shows that while older workers are motivated by values and purpose they also want to keep on learning and growing. 

This may not always mean linear progression — they may be interested in going “deeper” rather than “higher” and becoming more specialised rather than more senior. Alternatively, they may want to try something new and retrain in a different area.

Or they may want to take on more of a role supporting younger, less experienced colleagues.

As a manager, your role is to normalise the conversations about development and to understand what individuals are looking for and support them to achieve it.  If you work in a large organisation, it may be helpful for you to know what the current take-up is of older workers and development opportunities.  If it is low, consider why that might be?  What language or images may be used on internal brochures, for example.

In one-to-ones and annual reviews, avoid asking loaded questions that make assumptions (like “what would you like to do before you retire?”) but make sure you do ask questions about development.

Try open questions like “what would you like to do more of” and “how can you further develop your skills?”

Offering learning opportunities

When learning opportunities are offered, they should be available to all colleagues. If you think someone in your team would benefit from a course or workshop, actively make the effort to point it out to them and encourage them to sign up.

Remember that learning opportunities can be much broader than just a training course. Internally, you could offer mentoring, shadowing or secondments to provide new insights. Externally, colleagues could attend conferences or events to hear about new trends or join professional networks.
 

Giving good feedback

Giving feedback is an essential part of good management, but it can be daunting. Most of us don’t like the idea of criticising someone else, especially if they are someone with a lot of experience.

It can help to try and reframe feedback as an opportunity to help someone know what they have done well, and what could help them do even better.

Both positive and negative feedback is most effective when it is:

• given as soon as possible after the relevant incident
• as specific as possible.

The AID model can be a useful way to structure feedback. Identify the action ( what the person did) then the impact, and, if relevant, what you want them to do as a result.

For example:

• “That presentation was really clear and well-structured, the client was impressed, well done.”
• “The measurements were wrong on that product, so the customer is unhappy and has asked for a refund. Next time, please could you double check them?”

This approach means that feedback is always actionable and doesn’t feel like a personal criticism.
 

Taking a coaching approach

Many older workers we spoke to said they were frustrated with managers who took a “command and control” approach to managing them. With plenty of experience behind them they wanted to be supported to find solutions rather than told what to do.

Taking a coaching approach will mean team members have more autonomy and are able to use their own experience and knowledge to solve problems.

This means listening and asking questions, and giving them space to explore options.

If you are new to this approach, using the GROW model can help you structure a coaching conversation.