I recently wrote about the art of managing seasoned employees. Now, I have some thoughts to share about what works and what doesn’t when managing entry-level employees.
I have witnessed, and experienced first-hand, a wide range of entry-level management approaches. Like most people, my first glimpse into these varying management styles was when I was an entry-level employee myself. Some bosses liked to spoon-feed, in one case asking that an outline be submitted before work on an article could begin. In other cases (more to my liking), the manager preferred to throw the new employee into the proverbial pool, sending them to an event on their own shortly after starting on the job, confident that this unseasoned, but intelligent, person will figure it out.
In most cases, people do figure it out even when their boss has concerns. The funny part is it’s usually not the new employee but the boss who seems the most afraid about pulling back on step-by-step guidance.
What Should Entry-Level Employee Learn on Their Own?
I have seen a manager treat employees at conferences much as you would a child. They can’t roam a trade show floor on their own, stopping by on their own at booths that catch their eye, introducing themselves, and handing out their business card. They can’t attend a session at the conference on their own to take notes and write an article from those notes or try to snag an interview with one of the attendees or a presenter.
This approach makes me laugh. It seems silly, reflecting more on the boss’ neuroses than the entry-level employee’s likely competence.
On the other hand, I also have witnessed bosses treat entry-level employees like mind-readers, expecting them to guess at company protocols and to know industry jargon they probably were not exposed to while in school.
The trick is striking a balance between those two extremes, with a manager who is able to think critically about what the entry-level employee can most likely figure out on their own if they are intelligent and what would take them a long time to figure out on their own if they did not have it explained to them in advance.
For attending a trade show, for example, the manager could give the entry-level employee a general primer a day or two before departure. They then would share terms the unseasoned employee probably has not heard before that they will hear at the show, along with some of the major issues in the company’s industry they will hear bandied about. When applicable, the manager also would provide the entry-level employee with the company’s stand on these issues so the new employee doesn’t make a fool of themselves by contradicting the position of their own company.
Once at the show, the entry-level employee would be set free to interact on the show floor, in the sessions, and even at social events/cocktail parties they should be trusted to attend on their own.
The Advantages of Modern Communication Technology
Being an entry-level employee today isn’t what it was 30 years ago, before almost everyone walked around with powerful miniaturized computers in their pockets or purses.
The entry-level employee stumped at an event or meeting by themselves can Google or ask ChatGPT or another artificial intelligence bot nearly any question and get a response that, if not perfect, is significantly helpful.
More critically, they have instant access to colleagues and managers via text and group chat. “Hi Sandy, I just met Mark from Red Box Express, and he referenced a meeting he had with our team last year. Do you know what this is about?” Sandy then will be able to immediately text back a hint about what this could be about or might even be able to do a quick call about it.
The unseasoned employee also has access to whatever job aids a manager takes the time and care to put together. They could save those resources to someplace on their phone, bookmark them on their phone’s Internet browser, or save them to a folder in their e-mail system, which they can quickly access.
In other words, thanks to modern technology, a lifeline of information and knowledge is never far away.
This should embolden managers to give entry-level employees more autonomy and also should prompt managers to care enough to create online or digital job aids and prompts.
Help Them Set the Stage for Their Own Acts
An article by Arar Han in Entrepreneur offers four keys that entry-level employees should learn: “You’re not the star anymore, little details are big deals, it’s not about the money yet, and professional identity is a thing.”
“You’re not the star anymore” refers to entry-level employees fresh out of school who are used to being the star of their own work performance. When you’re in school, there is no customer to serve; you, as a student, are the customer. Your work performance outcome is solely the grade you earn and whatever personal fulfillment and genuine learning you take away.
In the workplace, the star is the customer or client. When an unseasoned employee is first hired, part of new-hire orientation should be pointing out that the central concern of the new employee should be the customer, client, or end-user of the company’s products and services. You may think this is intuitive, but you would be wrong in many cases.
It’s also easy to assume the new employee will understand the impact of the smallest details in how they do their work, but that also is often not an accurate assumption. For example, I needed to explain more than once to an entry-level employee why they should adhere to our file-naming protocol for e-blasts. They probably are not used to working as a team and forget that other people also must be able to easily find those files.
It can be frustrating for a new employee to make less money than they hoped, but the manager can emphasize from the beginning that while financial rewards will follow if they do a good job, their first job, more than anything else, is about learning.
The last point Han makes is on professional identity and the fear unseasoned employees may have in trying new tasks. This gets back to the tendency of nervous managers to pass on their anxieties to entry-level employees. The best way around it may be to ask the new employee what makes them nervous about this new task, providing the information and job aids that can help them—and then letting them try it on their own.
How do you prepare managers to effectively lead entry-level employees?