Managing Age Diversity Collaboratively in the Hotel Industry - How Younger Managers and Older Employees Get Along

Abstract: This thesis aims to give an insight into the relatively atypical work relationship between younger managers and older employees in the hotel industry. We illustrate this phenome-non based on the idea of age diversity management. Age diversity management, which promotes the benevolence of an age diverse workforce, is little noticed within the field of diversity management, but gets more and more crucial due to demographic changes like an ageing workforce. This qualitative study intends to find out how younger managers and older employees navigate their relationship at work. In eight interviews we became ac-quainted with both parties’ subjective perceptions and observed consistently harmonic and constructive relationships. We narrowed down three findings. Firstly, the age diverse workforce is able to manage age diversity collaboratively; younger managers and older em-ployees benefit of having diverse ages without the influences of a third party like the HR department. Secondly, even if the managers are younger than their employees and, conse-quently, the commonly perceived norm of managers being older than their employees is broken, the relationship’s nature is only considered to be critical by the younger managers in the beginning. Thirdly, the stereotype about older employees being change-averse and not open to new ideas is neglected. This study is of value for researchers and practitioners because it challenges some of the assumptions about age diversity management and an age diverse workforce.