Growing as an Adult, Manager - [website] Published: 6th of May 2011 by: (c) Staff Training Reporter
“When I'm all grown up” is a phrase used by youngsters all the time...
... but the fact is that being “all grown up” is something that never actually happens, and people continue to learn and go through similar developmental stages in adulthood as in their early lives.
Life is constantly changing, and with it so do we. As we grow older, however, while we may still continue to learn, certain changes occur that alter what we deem most important to us, what we take pride in and how we react to situations.
What you typically find happening is that as people grow older they become less interested and involved in advancement and more interested in autonomy and achievement.
Then there comes a time when what becomes of utmost importance is sharing the knowledge and wisdom gathered during life with younger generations.
For a manager certain changes take place over time as well, and evidence of managers becoming calmer, tougher, more rational, and less interested in personal development over this time has been found.
For organisations this means they will have to alter the way they appeal to these members of staff, remembering that as time progresses their definition of success will have changed, and so too will what motivates them and the goals they would like to achieve.
For this reason, treating mature staff as if they still believe what they did when they embarked on their careers would be a losing strategy, and one can expect offering promotions, pay increases and career ambition goals to these staff members to be more often than not ineffective.
Organisations need to understand the psychological changes that will occur in their employees’ later lives, enabling them to better construct personalised career plans that help their workers see what is expected and what will be gained.
