Inexperienced & Experienced -- meshing work styles with today's technology
We are a publishing company that has new inexperienced, but highly skilled and eager employees who do a great job of balancing work and life. We also have employees who are more experienced, but who are not keeping up with current technology and seem to be spinning their wheels, working hard and getting little done. Both add value. Any ideas on how to mesh the work styles and close the talent gap?
Comments
You will need to convince either side of the opposite's value.
How about "lunch and learns" or training hours? Where each side puts together a presentation -- the newer employees could do them on teaching new technology (and how it could make the experiences better/easier) and the older ones could do them on actual experiences encountered?
Or make up teams of a combination of new and experienced to do team building exercises and/or projects or the training sessions above. Maybe even have a contest on which team did the best presentation, etc.
Have you considered that the older workers may be "spinning their wheels" because they were inadequately trained on both new hardware and software, somethings that the tech-savvy younger workers consider second nature? Employers cannot assume that everyone has the same level of expertise.
I like the idea of partnering the two groups so they can learn from each other.
It seems like you need a mentoring program so that you can have an "experienced" person with an "unexperienced" person together- that way you have the best of both worlds. The key is make sure that you pair up people that have a good personality to work together- it is critical. The best of luck to you.
Angie
HR Director
I agree with the other posters that some sort of mentoring program or buddy system that pairs these people up will help you out. I also like the idea of training sessions that someone suggested. Not only will these help out your team regarding the technology issue but I have found that some of the more experienced can help to mold the inexperienced regarding general business topics like dress code, office etiquette, etc. I think when you have a mentor or buddy that gives you advice like this is comes across better than your manager telling you these things.
At my previous company we hired a lot of college graduates. I found that they sometimes lacked in the office etiquette, good work habits, dress code, etc. area. Giving them a buddy that can show them around the office and talk to them about these things worked much better than their manager doing it in a formal setting. We had a lot less problems with these issues after we started this buddy system then before. You could work this buddy system both ways and have the inexperienced teach the experienced a couple of things regarding technology and new ways of doing things.