Honoring Years of Service while Seeking Fresh Perspectives

Think back to when you started working for your current employer, even if it was in a different role than you currently hold. How long did it take for you to go from feeling like the newbie to feeling like you belong? How long were you aware of your time in the organization (“I started last week” / “I started working here eighteen months ago”)? Were you aware of who around you pre-dated you and who joined after you? And did you find yourself listening to one group more than the other? Valuing input from one group more than the other?

Hierarchy in organizations can take many forms, but ‘time served’ is certainly a factor. During my time at Harvard University – as is the case in many other large organizations – staff received recognition and perks at ten years, fifteen years, twenty, twenty-five, and so on, with plaques or other symbols of thanks. The longest serving people in large organizations are often seen as the wise elders whose opinions should be valued, but sometimes that came at the expense of newer ideas – and when innovation was intentionally pursued, this sometimes came at the expense of those longer-term employees. I saw both of these ends of the spectrum take place under different senior leadership teams at Harvard, and I wonder if you’ve seen one or both where you work also.

As a consultant and facilitator, I get to see hierarchy play out in a number of ways with a wide variety of clients from the for-profit and non-profit worlds, from small start-ups to multinational conglomerates. Last week, I was one facilitator among many working on a gathering for 520 leaders of a multinational Fortune 100 company. These leaders came from all over the world for a week-long meeting, and the group I was part of ran a series of fun team building activities. (One highlight was when they divided into groups of ten to build bikes to be donated to local middle-schoolers; I saw tears on a number of faces when we surprised them by bringing the kids in at the end to say thank you.) Throughout the program, the group of leaders wore a logo fleece top – a standard gift for employees at any large company – but I noticed that each person had a unique number embroidered on their shoulder. Asking them about it revealed the answer – their number was based on the order they were hired. So 1883 was hired before 1884, and a long time before 2193 (and all long after 1/4 – one of the four founders of the company, who answered the question for us).

The numbering was designed to build camaraderie and honor each individual employee – and in that particular organization, that might be a perfect fit – I was not part of the rest of their meeting, so I didn’t have the wider context, without which I have no basis to pass any judgment! For many organizations, though, this numbering could easily – and unintentionally – set up a pecking order that would be detrimental to the health of the organization and to individuals within it… unless it’s set up as a way to remind longer-term employees that new hires may have new perspectives and approaches to issues that have been handled the same way for a long time.

I wonder how your organization approaches the balance of honoring long-term employees while also seeking the fresh perspectives that newer employees can bring?

This Week’s Tip:

Seek to understand how your organization…:

1. …Honors long-serving employees. Other than promotions and bonuses, what else marks the contribution that long-serving employees have made to your organization? Depending on your organization, these may have been set up a long time ago – who gets to decide what these honors are? Is it time for an update? If so, is that something you can contribute to?
2. …Invites the contributions and innovation of newer employees. Beyond the interview process, are there structures in place to encourage the sharing of new ideas? With your team, do you invite “blue sky” thinking in each meeting? Perhaps you could hold a brainstorming session without an agenda – a no-judgement place for newer employees to share ideas, without jumping to reasons why those ideas wouldn’t be possible. Gather these ideas at the end of the meeting, and simply let them percolate over the next few weeks – see which ones keep coming to mind, and which ones would be worth exploring further.

Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.

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