WHAT DO RUSSIAN MANAGERS WANT TO ADD TO LIFE-LONG LEARNING OF THEIR AGED SUBORDINATES?

Problem:
When two different generations interact they face difficulties because of different points of view. But what if participants of interaction belong not only to different generations but at the same time to different professional groups – manager and subordinates? What aged experts’ performance features don’t Russian managers don’t satisfied by? What tasks for aged experts life-long learning should be proposed? What tasks for life-long learning should be proposed to managers, who interact with aged subordinates?

Theoretical background:
Based on Job Demands – Job Resources Model, we applied it not to organizational factors but personal ones. We investigated variables: 1
) Russian managers opinion 1 “Where aged experts prefer to input their personal resources (time, efforts, attention, competences) – preparation to job process, job process or results of job process?”
2) Russian managers opinion 2 “What is the main source of their demands to own performance – work experience knowledge or standards?”
We also divided demands, based on work experience knowledge, onto measurable (explicit) and hard measurable (implicit).

Sample:
Russian managers, who interact with aged (55 y.o. and older) subordinates (experts). There are 120 participants of our research.

Method:
We applied written questionnaire to collect empirical data and content-analysis (Henri, 1992) to analyze obtained answers.

Discussion:
Russian managers noted that aged subordinates are more oriented to work experience knowledge then to standards as the main source of demands to their own performance. Russian managers proposed to train aged experts:
a) to become more oriented to standards then to work experience:
b) to pay more attention to result rather to process:
c) to fine balance between job standards engagement and performance flexibility.

At the same time, based on our research results, we propose following training goals for managers, who interact with aged subordinates:
a) self-monitoring of applied job control criteria;
b) use to job control more measurable criteria rather hard measurable ones;
c) to prefer measurable criteria to plan performance tasks for aged subordinates.