Working Paper Number 4
THE MANAGEMENT OF OLDER WORKERS BY YOUNGER MANAGERS IN THE
SCOTTISH HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: IS THERE A PROBLEM?
Nick Boreham and Kate Miller (University of Stirling, Scotland)
1. INTRODUCTION
The ESRC project on sustaining the employability of older workers in the hospitality sector:
personal learning strategies and cultures of learning (RES-000-22-2506) undertook to
support People1st , the sector skills council for hospitality and tourism, with research and
development into the post-retirement employment of older workers in the hospitality industry.
The prime issue identified by People1st was the management of older workers by younger
managers. ‘Older workers’ primarily means those who have retired from their main careers and
are now employed in a different role in the hospitality industry, such as hotel concierges and
visitor attraction guides, although longstanding employees who have remained in employment
after retirement age are also included. The ages of the older workers included in the research
ranged from 50 (the UK government threshold to becoming an ‘older worker’) to 80+ with a
median age of 60. In contrast, many managers in this sector are believed to be much younger,
and the question was raised of the possibility of intergenerational issues when they managed
employees older than themselves.
2. DATA GATHERED
We carried out in-depth interviews with 29 older workers in 5 hotels and 5 visitor attractions
throughout Scotland. In addition, we carried out in-depth interviews with 11 line managers and 4
human resource (HR) staff across 60% of these hotels and visitor attractions. The participating
line managers all managed workers older than themselves, although the ages of these managers
ranged from 27 to 56 with a median age of 50. Some of the managers were themselves being
managed by senior managers younger than themselves! Most of the line managers and older
workers reported on their experiences in their own line of work (housekeeping, reception, etc.) but
the HR staff commented on their perceptions of the young manager – older worker issue across
the whole enterprise, sometimes drawing on their experience of other enterprises in which they
had worked in a HR capacity. Older workers were interviewed separately from the managers and
HR staff, but in some cases an HR person and a line manager were interviewed together. In the
enterprises where we interviewed both older workers and line managers from the same
department, we were able to explore the different perspectives on the same issue e.g.
negotiations between an older worker and a younger manager about shift work.
The hotel work in which these employees were engaged spanned property maintenance,
administration, front-of house (concierge, reception), serving in shops and bars, kitchen work,
laundry work and cleaning. The work in visitor attractions was more multi-skilled, but focused on
tour guiding, serving in shops, property maintenance, ticketing, driving coaches etc., operating
machinery and assisting in the visitor centre. Many employees of visitor attractions had the title of
customer service team member, although they tended to specialise in one of the above roles.
3. ORGANISATION OF REPORT
The discussion of the results is organised in four main sections:
1

The employment of older workers in the hotel and visitor attraction industry

The older worker-younger manager relationship in hotels and visitor attractions

Design of work based training on the management of older workers by younger
managers

Recommendations on harnessing the prior experience of older workers to their new roles
in the hospitality industry
4. THE EMPLOYMENT OF OLDER WORKERS IN THE HOTEL AND VISITOR
ATTRACTION INDUSTRY
Before discussing the issues around younger managers and older workers, it is helpful to
examine the nature of older workers’ employment in this industry. This is an essential prerequisite
to understanding their training needs. The key points emerging from the project are:

Although the income is an important factor, most of the employees working past
retirement age were also motivated by a desire to interact with others (both customers
and colleagues) and to feel needed (both in a role as supportive colleagues and as the
possessors of relevant customer service and other relevant skills).

Although there are differences between hotels and visitor attractions, in both cases the
prime focus is the quality of customer service. Customer care is vital to the success of the
business. Quite apart from the need to give value for money, if a hotel guest complains
and the problem is not solved immediately, she will not return to that hotel again. If a
family on a day out find themselves waiting an inordinate length of time for the arrival of
the tour bus, train or boat, they will not recommend that attraction to their neighbours,
relatives or friends.

The crucial importance of customer care was fully appreciated by all the older workers we
interviewed. Typical in this respect was the hotel golf shop assistant responsible for
organising corporate golf days, who said that the biggest challenge of his job was “to
make sure it all works smoothly, because these people, if they get a hitch, that could stop
them coming back next year …” In general, the close link between customer care and the
financial viability of the business was explicitly recognised by the older workers.

In both hotels and visitor attractions, the majority of employees have face-to-face contact
with customers. This applies to older workers too. Thus in our sample, while a few older
workers such as the only hotel laundry assistant in the sample had no customer contact,
for the majority – concierges, property maintenance staff, shop assistants, tour guides
etc. – the core skill was their ability to interact with the customer in ways that ensured the
latter enjoyed their stay in the hotel or visitor attraction.

Almost all the older workers in our sample had previously worked in the for-profit sector,
and almost all had extensive customer service experience.

The older workers claimed that it was this prior experience that enabled them to provide
excellent customer service. As one said, “I ran a building company for many years…..I’m
used to dealing with people…..because I used to sell the products of my work i.e.
houses, flats, whatever.” Invariably, the managers and HR staff we interviewed valued
the older workers for their ‘people skills’.

The older workers also attributed what they regarded as their high standard of work to
their maturity. Many judged their performance to be superior to that of younger workers.
2
Thus a head concierge said: “a lot of the young guys, they don’t like a lot of our
[customers] ‘cos they can be a bit snappy … I know how to speak to them, where they
don’t, you know: they haven’t got the experience yet … I know how to speak to them and
... that helps ... Somebody younger in that position wouldn’t have that experience of life,
and therefore can’t, or wouldn’t, deal with things maybe as effectively.” Similarly, a
property maintenance worker said: “you’ve always got to think about the health and
safety side before you tackle [a task], but a younger head might just dive in there,
whereas you say ‘Wait a minute - that’s electrical,’ or you know what’s involved here
before you actually step in, you know...”.

The managers and HR staff we interviewed agreed with the older workers’ view of
themselves as good employees. They too attributed their employability to the business
and customer service knowledge, skills and attitudes they brought with them from their
previous work. This knowledge and skill included: their work ethic (reliability,
thoroughness, presentism); their enthusiasm for working in the hotel or visitor attraction
and their enjoyment of the work (essential ‘emotional labour’ in the hospitality sector); the
social skills which enabled them to deal with difficult customers and also with difficult
staff; their problem solving capacity; the wide variety of occupational skills they brought
with them, ranging from building maintenance to IT – these proved especially useful in
visitor attractions which could not always afford to call in outside plumbers, electricians
etc.; coping strategies for pressures of work learned from previous experience in highpressured jobs; and finally their initiative and self-directedness. The last was manifested
in the older workers’ willingness to deal with situations immediately instead of ‘passing
the buck’. A typical older worker attitude was “the buck stops here…. if we have a
problem we have to resolve it. We can’t say well we don’t know what to do….” . The selfdirectedness also included self-directed learning, enabling them to learn their jobs without
much training (e.g. visitor guides would do their own reading and research to learn the
history of the site round which they were guiding visitors).

With a few exceptions, such as laundry work and housekeeping, all the 10 enterprises we
investigated organised the work process around teamwork which was to some measure
self-directed. The teams could be departmentally based or multi-tasked. The enterprises
expected a high level of collegiality and collaboration within these teams. The older
workers we interviewed were judged both by themselves and by their managers to be
good team players, and some of the older workers were critical of the lack of collegiality
among younger colleagues and had striven hard to improve the situation.

Many visitor attractions such as heritage sites or distinctive geographical locations value
employees who have a personal interest in the place. They like employing people who
enjoy being there and who want to share their enthusiasm with visitors, for these make
the best tour guides and customer service staff. Some employers do not advertise for
staff but rely on potential employees to approach them. It turns out that many of the best
of these applicants are older people already in receipt of a retirement pension, who are
seeking work in an undertaking or in a location that they love. In addition to their
enthusiasm at being there, as already stated, these older applicants frequently offer
additional skills from previous work such as maintenance and IT.

Hotels in particular employ large numbers of young seasonal staff, often from abroad,
who live in hostels maintained by their employers. Older workers were proactive in
building supportive quasi-parental roles with these younger colleagues, who were often in
need of such guidance. This entirely unofficial duty was greatly valued by the managers
and HR staff.

The typical older worker wishes to maintain a clear work-life balance and has definite
preferences regarding hours and the nature of the duties. In both hotels and visitor
attractions, a common HRM strategy is to adjust the work role to suit the older worker,
3
recognising the value of his or her contribution in the areas mentioned above as a
beneficial trade-off.

The typical older worker is not building a career and therefore has no interest in acquiring
vocational qualifications such as SVQs. The typical worker will also have received
customer service and statutory training in his or her previous employment, such as
introductions to customer care and statutory health and safety training. This results in a
lack of interest in some of the courses on offer in the industry. It is common for HR staff
to excuse employees from this training, despite official requirements that they complete it

Nevertheless, some older workers felt they had not been trained adequately in some of
the skills they required. They would have welcomed training if it a/ was targeted on their
specific learning needs and b/ built on their prior experience, rather than treated them as
new entrants to the work force.
5. THE OLDER WORKER-YOUNGER MANAGER RELATIONSHIP
5.1 Is there a problem?
One of the deliverables requested by People1st was the design of work based training on the
management of older workers by younger managers. However, a major conclusion of the study is
that there does not appear to be a major problem in older worker-younger manager relationships.
All 29 older workers were asked about the challenging aspects of their work role:
What has been the most challenging aspect of your role? How have you met this
challenge? Have there been any other challenges? How have you met these challenges?
None of the older workers reported that being managed by a younger person presented them
with any challenges. It is possible that they were unwilling to criticise this aspect of their
employment to an outside researcher, but this seems unlikely as most of them were very willing
to report other challenges and problems. These included inadequate initial training for their jobs,
periodic work overload and lack of collaboration from co-workers. Their failure to cite the
relationship with younger managers as challenging was not because they were unaware of age
differentials, as this was frequently mentioned. For example, the head concierges found it a
challenge to deal with the laid back attitude of the younger members of their teams, and some
property maintenance staff felt that younger employees could be more careless about health and
safety than themselves. So if they had had a problem with being managed by someone younger
than themselves, it seems likely that they would have been willing to talk about it with the project
interviewers.
As a follow up question, the older workers were asked directly: “One of the features of this
industry is that a lot of the managers are very young. Has this raised any issues for you? Has it
presented any challenges?” Once again, all interviewees specifically stated that it had not.
This conclusion is backed up by a small number of interviews in which we were able to explore
the relationship between an older worker and younger manager from both sides. In these cases it
was obvious that there was a relationship of mutual respect.
The depth with which this issue was probed, the willingness of the older workers to comment on
the challenging aspects of their work roles, and their awareness of performance problems relating
to the age differential, suggests that being managed by younger people is not a problem for them.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the interviews with older workers were, of course,
conducted privately with the promise of complete anonymity and confidentiality.
4
The interviews with the 11 line managers and 4 HR staff probed the following areas: key issues in
the management of older workers by younger managers; skills gaps of managers particularly with
respect to managing older workers; and what interviewees thought were the issues around
interpersonal communication between older workers and younger managers.
None of the 15 managers or HR staff reported any problems in the older worker-younger
manager relationship. One HR specialist made the point that a young manager would only have
problems managing an older worker if they had problems in being a manager at all.
This supports the conclusion from the interviews with the older workers themselves, that being
managed by younger managers is not generating major problems in this industry.
5.2 Possible reasons why the management of older workers by younger
managers is not generating problems
Our study revealed several reasons why the younger manager – older worker relationship is not
problematic.
5.2.1 Management style
The characteristic management style in the hotels and visitor attractions we studied was
democratic rather than autocratic or bureaucratic. Even in the chain hotels, which operated on
standardised procedures, the line managers varied the procedures to accommodate individuals
including older workers. For example, an older worker who did not wish to work night shifts, even
though it was apparently in his contract, was given a dispensation following extensive
negotiations with his younger manager.
It was quite common to ‘fit the job to the person’ rather than ‘fit the person to the job’. For
example, one manager said:
we can usually find a role that suits people [who want to work beyond retirement]. They
enjoy working for the company, so someone like P who retired from the accounts team
really wanted to stay on and put feelers into about three or four departments in the hope
that could accommodate him part time..... Then of course a job came up that was ideal for
him
As for the older workers themselves, whilst many had been senior managers themselves in their
previous careers, they were willing to drop out of such a stressful role and were more than willing
be managed by others, even though the manager was young.
5.2.2 Ethos of the workplace
Both the hotels and visitor attractions tried to build ‘family’ relationships among workers and line
managers. An illustrative comment by a manager was “I love my team” and the teams usually
developed friendship relationships outside work. In this context, the older worker – younger
manager relationship often took on some of the characteristics of a grand/father/mother –
grand/son/daughter relationship. Many interviewees, including older workers, managers and HR
staff, commented that there was a relationship of respect between the generations. Young staff
tended to look up to older people for advice and help, both at work and outside work, and many
older workers found it fulfilling to give such help when it was requested. As one visitor attraction
manager said:
I think a lot of the younger members of staff look up to the more experienced members of
staff … if they’re not sure with something they’ve been asked to do, they may go to them
for help or advice … it could be something that’s not to do with work … personal [problems]
5
One interviewee pointed out that society is changing and that older people are now accepted in
the workplace.
5.2.3 The core skills of this industry
The core skills in visitor attractions are age-independent. For example, visitor attractions require
those staff who have customer contact to have cheerful personalities, enthusiasm for the
attraction and to be good team players. Older people are just as likely to possess these qualities
and so there is no reason why they should be considered ‘past it’. In hotels, where a high quality
of individual customer service is crucial, older people often had an advantage over younger
employees due to their greater work and life experience. For these reasons, older employees
were rarely likely to be seen to performing badly, and were therefore less likely to be stigmatised,
in contrast to heavy manual work such as coal-getting (where productivity declines rapidly with
age). The one exception to this was the older worker who developed dementia and was
disciplined for poor performance before his illness was discovered. The manager concerned
clearly regarded dementia as age related.
5.3 Issues in the management of older workers
On detailed probing, however, some problems in the management of older workers were
reported. These were not specific to the younger manager – older worker relationship, but
because they were associated with the workers’ age and experience they are mentioned here.
Three types of problem emerged: declining physical capacity, attitude to training and
expectations.
5.3.1 Declining physical capacity
One older worker reported that he lacked the strength he had once possessed and did not feel up
to the level of physical effort that younger people were willing to accept. Similarly, several of the
managers we interviewed felt that older workers were not capable of the heavy manual labour
sometimes required. One head housekeeper pointed out that housekeeping is very physical and
that, in her experience, some older workers were not capable of completing their work quotas; in
such cases, the employee would quickly leave. A manager in a visitor attraction reported
reservations about putting a 79 year old in a position where s/he might have to physically
evacuate visitors in an emergency. However, declining physical capacity was not a problem, as
there was a practice of allocating people to the work they were most happy doing and to excuse
older workers from heavy manual work. This was helped by the highly flexible work role system
operating in most of the enterprises.
Sometimes older people have medical problems (said a manager in a visitor attraction)…
hernias and things like that … you obviously have to be careful that you don’t ask your
older workers to do too much lifting and carrying
5.3.2 Attitude to training.
Several managers reported that older workers had a negative attitude to the standard industry
courses available. The older workers we interviewed said the same. There seemed to be three
reasons for this.

A major motivation for attending courses is career building, but as none of the older
workers were committed to career development, this motivation was absent.
6

The courses often repeated what the older workers already knew, sometimes at a more
rudimentary level. Examples are basic H&S training and inspirational courses on the
principles of customer service. Most older workers had completed several H&S courses,
and most had worked successfully in customer service for many years, and they tended
to find these courses naïve.

Trainers typically did not build on older workers’ experience but assumed a tabula rasa.
In contrast, older workers expected that their prior experience would be acknowledged
and built on. This was not necessarily an age problem, as some of the young staff were
graduates whose prior knowledge might not be taken into account either.
5.3.3 Expectations
When employees with long service move into a new field, as was the case with most of the older
workers in our sample, their expectations might be inconsistent with what they encounter in the
retirement job. Most of the older workers in the sample had moved into hospitality from other forprofit enterprises where quality customer service was crucial – in these cases there was no
apparent problem. However, problems were reported by managers with older workers with
decades of experience working in the public sector. These expected additional pay for additional
duties, whereas older workers with experience of the for-profit sector were often acutely
conscious that the volume of trade and the expenses of running the business could not support
this.
Of course, the sample of 10 enterprises is not representative. It was impossible to compel
enterprises to participate, so we could not draw a statistically random sample. It is possible that
any enterprise with an ‘older worker problem’ (if such problems exist) declined to participate,
biasing the sample. After all, four of the five hotels were members of international chains where
human resource management is likely to be state-of-the-art, and one was a large family-owned
hotel with an excellent reputation in the industry. It is possible that there are other enterprises
where the management – older worker relationships are more tense. Similarly, the five visitor
attractions were not necessarily representative of the thousand or so such enterprises in
Scotland.
6. DESIGN OF TRAINING ON THE MANAGEMENT OF OLDER WORKERS BY
YOUNGER MANAGERS
Training on the management of older workers by younger managers must take account of the
conditions under which older workers are employed. However, due to age discrimination
legislation, older workers cannot be regarded as a separate category of employee and agespecific management training is therefore not indicated. It is particularly important not to
problematise older workers (with regard, for example, to health issues). Instead, to encompass
issues that impact on older workers, managers should be trained in the management of a diverse
workforce, allowing any issues affecting older workers in particular to be treated alongside issues
that affect other groups covered by equal opportunities legislation.
As there does not seem to be a major problem, there does not seem to be a need for a major
training intervention. However, the apparent absence of a problem may reflect the enlightened
management practices in Scottish hotels and visitor attractions. To ensure that problems continue
to be prevented, courses in hospitality management, both initial HNC-based training and on-thejob training should reinforce this management philosophy, especially by addressing the following
objectives:

Encouraging a democratic rather than an autocratic or bureaucratic management style,
one which emphasises the shared ownership of the work process and permits post-
7
retirement part-time employees to negotiate details of their work roles and training needs
with line managers.

Building collegial relationships between team members in which older workers assume
some of the characteristics of a grand/father/mother to younger colleagues including line
managers. In this context, older workers are willing and able to support the latter with
personal problems and difficult working relationships (e.g. disciplinary hearings). Part of
the older workers’ motivation for working past retirement age is to feel needed, and most
have more to contribute than their job descriptions specify. So given an open set of
collegial relationships, they can gain job satisfaction and make an important contribution
to the work process, improving alignment between what the employer and the employee
gain from the employment contract.

Ensuring that when making management decisions, younger managers consult with and
listen to older workers, acknowledging and drawing on their prior knowledge, skills and
life experience. Taking these into account will both increase the skills and knowledge
base of the enterprise and facilitate a more productive working relationship with older
workers (who want to be valued, and believe – with justification - that their prior
experience is of value to the organisation). Once again, this improves the alignment
between what the employer and what the employee gain from the employment contract.
One effective work-based approach to training younger managers to work with older workers
would be to organise whole-department teamwork exercises. These could be designed as awaydays, either a fun day out together (such as a paintballing session) or a visit to another hotel or
visitor attraction for the customer experience and to draw lessons for the home organisation. In
either case, an important objective is to enable the members of the team to get to know each
other, to build collegial relationships and to facilitate the older and younger generations’
understanding of where each other is coming from, their values and the nature of their
commitment to the organisation. By participating in these events, younger managers and older
workers could build working relationships that would enable the former to exercise their
management roles in the ways described above. This recommendation is based on accounts
from several organisations, both visitor attractions and hotels, of their success with this kind of
training event.
7. RECOMMENDATIONS ON HARNESSING THE PRIOR EXPERIENCE OF OLDER
WORKERS TO THEIR NEW ROLES IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
On the basis of our interviews, we do not feel that there is a case for formally mining older
workers’ relevant work experience with techniques such as the ‘knowledge elicitation’
methodology used by some companies who rely on intellectual capital. There is evidence that
older workers are more than willing to transfer the fruits of their experience informally – they will
make suggestions, give advice, etc. if asked. All the action necessary for employers is to ensure
that there are plenty of opportunities for informal exchanges between employees, under which
circumstances knowledge exchange will occur naturally. One good practice is to encourage open
debate during regular meetings of staff, both at the level of the department and across the whole
enterprise. Another is to provide plenty of space for informal gatherings during meal breaks etc.
8