Digest 8. Do younger and older employees react differently to feedback?
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With population aging, organizations are facing an increasingly diverse workforce. This has pressured human resources practitioners to reflect on how to manage effectively the performance of multiple generations and to debate the need to tailor their practices to different age groups.
Relevant insights on this matter come from Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST), which has been supported by several empirical studies. SST states that with age, and as time horizons shrink, a person’s motivation will shift from being knowledge-oriented to more emotion-oriented. In other words, research shows that younger individuals, who project themselves more in the future, tend to focus on knowledge-related goals, skills acquisition and opportunities for development. Older individuals, who are more projected in the present, tend to focus on positive emotions and emotionally gratifying relationships.
Furthermore, older workers typically display more affective commitment to their organizations, while younger employees tend to place greater importance on “employability” and opportunity for advancement.
Taking into account these differences, managing the performance of different age groups may pose complex challenges. Interestingly, researchers also suggest that feedback orientation - “an individual’s overall receptivity to feedback”- may vary according to age, thereby resulting in different feedback reactions.
Age differences in feedback orientation
Wang, Burlacu, Truxillo, James, and Yao (2015) surveyed 623 Chinese employees from a manufacturing company before and after feedback meetings to understand if age was associated with the employee’s pre-existing idea of feedback (before it took place) and subsequent reactions to it. The researchers specifically picked the two dimensions that could be associated with SST: Social Awareness – “the tendency to use feedback to be aware of other’s views of oneself and to be sensitive to these views”- and Utility – “the tendency to believe that feedback is useful for achieving goals”.
The results revealed that older workers had higher levels of feedback orientation on social awareness, but lower levels of feedback orientation on utility than younger workers. This is aligned with SST, as older workers will be more likely inclined to use feedback to understand others’ views about themselves and to inform the quality of their social relations; younger workers will be more likely inclined to use feedback to improve their performance and facilitate their career pursuit. Why is this important? Because employee’s feedback orientation will also determine how they react to certain types of feedback, and because can guide managers to offer more personalized (and effective) feedback.
Age differences in feedback reactions
The study also found that positive feedback and a feedback delivered in a considerate, respectful manner led to better reactions in older workers than in younger workers, whereas feedback with quality was more important for younger workers than for older workers. Are you unsure what is feedback with quality? Check our previous digest on constructive feedback to learn all about it.
Infographic created by REAL PAL - Age and reaction to feedback
Organizational implications
Our previous digests have clearly shown the importance to tailor feedback to individual characteristics (e.g., employee personality). This study highlighted once more that there is no one-size-fits all feedback. As such, the age group of the employee may be one more factor to consider when adjusting performance messages.
Specifically, when providing feedback to older workers, managers should avoid focusing solely on performance aspects that need development, and instead also dedicate time to the positive aspects of performance. In this way, older workers will not perceive the feedback as being overly negative, which would undermine their social interactions and self-views. Additionally, wording feedback in a considerate manner would yield more positive reactions from mature workers.
When delivering feedback to younger individuals, it is important to improve the informational quality of feedback in order to engender desirable feedback reactions from them. Moreover, the feedback should take a long-term look and support younger workers in identifying courses of action to increase their career possibilities within the company and, more generally, their future employability. This should meet their strong need for personal and professional growth.
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Reference: Wang, M., Burlacu, G., Truxillo, D., James, K., & Yao, X. (2015). Age differences in feedback reactions: The roles of employee feedback orientation on social awareness and utility. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(4), 1296–1308. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038334