Younger boss, older worker

Cooperation, communication can overcome age differences

“Whippersnapper.”

“Old coot.”

You won’t — or shouldn’t — hear that kind of exchange on the job.

In the new multigenerational workplace, what could have been a name-calling confrontation between an older worker and a younger boss is more often a partnership that capitalizes on the bosses’ and employees’ different experiences and strengths.

Age doesn’t make a difference.

Jeremy Crow, 25, is the supervisor of the Magnolia home theater ministore inside the Best Buy in Buckhead. Three of his five direct reports are older than he is.

“I go to them for as much as they come to me,” Crow said. “I understand they have more knowledge” about the products. He also incorporates that knowledge base in training for all employees.

Crow has been with the company for about four years in several roles and departments, including a job as an assistant manager. He also has a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

“I was taught how to communicate effectively, how to motivate people,” he said.

Other workers such as Chris Petersen, 36, haven’t been at Best Buy nearly as long, but they have more knowledge about high-end home theater products.

“[Crow] uses me as a resource quite a bit, especially where a customer has a 3- or 4-year-old sound system,” said Petersen, who has been in electronics sales for 12 years. “He knows the current product, but not previous ones.”

In addition, Petersen said, he has the experience to close the deal, especially on more expensive purchases. A large-screen, high-definition television set can cost as much as $15,000, and speakers can go for $1,000 or more.

“The more you do it, the better you get,” Petersen said. “Very rarely do I run into a situation I haven’t dealt with before.”

Crow’s and Petersen’s situation is becoming more common. One-fifth of employed adults are older than their bosses, according to a survey last year by Randstad USA, an Atlanta-based staffing company.

And that number is likely to increase as more older workers say they plan to stay in the work force even after they retire. This year, an average of 4.6 adults turn 65 each minute, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That rate will almost double by 2025.

A well-documented retirement boom has begun already, as the oldest baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) begin to take early retirement and approach the age for traditional retirement. A 2005 Merrill Lynch study of baby boomers’ retirement plans found that more than three-quarters see themselves doing some sort of work during their retirement years.

There are some potential pitfalls ahead. The Randstad survey found that three-quarters of older workers (age 55 and older) said they relate well to younger workers, but only 56 percent of all employees said they relate well to older workers, and 77 percent said younger workers do not seek advice from employees older than 50.

A report by the Center on Aging and Work at Boston College points out that a multigenerational workplace is hardly a new phenomenon.

In agrarian societies since the dawn of time, children, parents and grandparents worked side-by-side on the farm as a matter of survival. And even after the Industrial Revolution began, children often were employed in factories alongside adults, who often worked until they dropped dead.
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