{"id":65731,"date":"2025-06-30T00:02:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T05:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/?p=65731"},"modified":"2025-06-25T12:44:38","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:44:38","slug":"managing-seasoned-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/managing-seasoned-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing Seasoned Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

A funny phenomenon is when an employee you were co-equal with until a few months prior starts attempting to manage you the same way they manage their entry-level employees. I say \u201cfunny,\u201d but truthfully, it\u2019s one of those situations where if you don\u2019t laugh, you\u2019ll cry. It\u2019s that frustrating and angering.<\/p>\n

It occurs to me that when a manager reflexively manages all employees like they\u2019re entry-level, the reason may be that that\u2019s the only way they know how to manage. They\u2019re not emotionally intelligent enough or lack the inborn instincts and communications skills to figure out on their own that the same management approach doesn\u2019t work with a person who has decades of experience.<\/p>\n

I went looking online for resources on this topic, and I found many related to how a younger, less experienced person should manage a person who is older and more experienced. However, I was surprised to find no resources directly related to how to manage a person who is not younger than you and not necessarily more experienced than you, but also far from an entry-level employee.<\/p>\n

I Googled the question of how to manage senior-level employees, and this page<\/a> came up with many tips that lead mostly to pages on managing someone older and more experienced. Nevertheless, some of the tips also work well with managing a previously co-equal employee.<\/p>\n

Rule #1: Acknowledge Their Experience<\/h2>\n

At the top of the recommendations compiled by Google Gemini\u2019s search bot was to acknowledge that this employee comes to you with built-in know-how and doesn\u2019t require\u2014and most likely doesn\u2019t want\u2014someone looking over their shoulder.<\/p>\n

Despite my decades of experience writing and editing articles, a manager once offered to have me watch her edit an article in real time. \u201cI can show you how I edit an article,\u201d she said to me, as if describing an exotic procedure I had never heard of before. The offer, though perhaps well-intended, was tone deaf. An experienced employee doesn\u2019t need what amounts to a backseat driver looking over their shoulder while they do their work, ready to correct and argue about the decisions they make in completing their task. We all have our own ways of doing things, and except for a math problem that has a black-and-white, wrong-versus-right answer, judgment about work is usually subjective.<\/p>\n

Refine Communication<\/h2>\n

A new manager of an experienced employee will want to grasp how their new charge does things. But a better way to go about it in my example above would be for the manager to say something such as: \u201cI\u2019m trying to find new ways of presenting our material to readers. Would you be open to sharing with me your process of editing and presenting articles? I want to see if there\u2019s a different way we can present the same information. It\u2019s good information; I just want to explore the possibility of different ways of getting it to readers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

When an employee is not new to management in general, just new to managing experienced employees, it can be easy to overlook the need for additional training. The Human Resources and Learning teams may say to themselves, \u201cOh, they\u2019ll be fine. They\u2019ve managed numerous employees over the years.\u201d <\/em>They may not stop to look at this potential training need from a more nuanced angle: \u201cBut are all the people they are new to managing in the same situation as all the employees they managed in the past? Are they all also entry-level employees?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

If nothing else, a primer and role-playing practice on how to communicate with a seasoned employee versus an entry-level employee may be needed.<\/p>\n

Avoid Centralizing Control<\/h2>\n

A newly promoted manager who only has experience managing entry-level employees may opt to centralize control over departmental resources, including human resources. To assert authority and control, the new manager of seasoned employees may decide to make all new hires in the department report to them. They then will \u201cloan out\u201d as needed these new hires to the seasoned employees, rather than giving the seasoned employees their own entry-level employees to manage.<\/p>\n

This approach doesn\u2019t take advantage of the ability to optimize delegation to senior-level employees. These employees are experienced enough that they don\u2019t need the head of the department to manage an employee for them; they, too, can share know-how with a junior employee.<\/p>\n

Build Trust and Rapport<\/h2>\n

The other major tip related to managing seasoned employees was to establish trust and rapport with the new reports.<\/p>\n

From my own experience, it\u2019s best to avoid making moves that erode the ability of team members to enjoy themselves together. Budgetary challenges are often a concern for newly promoted employees. However, they should think carefully before eliminating opportunities for employees\u2014especially the most seasoned team members\u2014to travel to industry events, for example.<\/p>\n

Yet another \u201cfunny\u201d thing I have seen happen: cutting seasoned employees\u2019 attendance at major industry events so entry-level employees can attend instead. This approach assumes that vendors and other industry partners want to meet with entry-level employees rather than experienced ones.<\/p>\n

Including all employees in events that require travel expenses is a nice idea, but, like so many decisions tied to the management of senior-level employees, a differentiation in current value to the organization must be acknowledged and appreciated. When\u2019s the last time you remember an industry partner calling up to schedule a meeting at a conference with your fresh-out-of-college, entry-level employee?<\/p>\n

Does your organization offer training to managers on specifically how to manage senior-level employees?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Using the same management approach for entry-level employees and those who have decades of experience will not lead to optimal performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-65731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blog"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nManaging Seasoned Employees<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Using the same management approach for entry-level employees and those who have decades of experience will not lead to optimal performance.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/managing-seasoned-employees\/\" \/>\n<meta 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