At any point in your career, you could be asked to manage employees who are younger than you. And while working with people who are just a few years younger than you can be easy enough to figure out, if you’re someone who’s much older and is trying to work with people who are far younger than you, knowing how to bridge this gap can be a challenge. Luckily, whether you feel like you’re still young at heart or you’re just a few years away from moving into a senior living facility, there are things you can do to get better at this.

To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for managing younger employees. 

Make Your Rules And Expectations Clear

For many people of older generations, younger employees can often seem like they don’t care about things as much as you’d like them to or that they don’t understand what it takes to be successful at their job. And the fact of the matter is, this could very well be true. So if you’re wanting to get on the same page here, you need to make sure that your employee knows what your rules and expectations are for them.

When you have things that your younger employees should be doing each day or focusing on for their job, these expectations need to be clear to them. This way, both of you can know if they’re able to really fulfill the role of their position or not. 

Always Be Open To Questions

There’s nothing worse than having questions about something and feeling like you have no one that you can reach out to and trust to give you the answers. So if you want your younger employees to feel empowered at work, you need to be someone that they can come to when they have questions. 

While you should also give them the tools to find their own answers when applicable, if you’ve set yourself up as a boss that they can come to when they aren’t sure about something, they’ll come to trust you much more at work. 

Be Prepared To Change Things That Aren’t Working

When employees are new to your company or to the workforce in general, they may have fresh eyes to see things in ways that you can’t quite notice all on your own. So when a younger employee has an idea about how to change things, it could be worth your while to consider what they’re saying and see if this change could be something to implement. 

As you are open to this type of feedback and willing to change to accommodate your staff, you’ll create a work environment that all of your employees will love to come to each day.

If you’ve been having a hard time managing your younger employees, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you figure out some ways that this can be addressed.