Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!)

I am a woman in my early 30s, and I have worked at the same government agency since graduating with a professional degree. I have never had any other full-time employment, as I did my undergraduate and professional degrees without taking a break in between. Without getting into too much detail, my agency has a major impact on people’s lives; therefore, I consider my work to be extremely important, and I take pride in getting things right.

At work, I am a junior supervisor, so I have supervisory authority over employees’ work product but no hiring/firing/disciplinary power. I have been in this role for a year. Part of my job includes supervising the work of some support staff members. From what I can see and what I have been told, these support staff members have been doing the same job for decades, and seemingly, the prior person in my role signed off on everything the staff did without reviewing it. This past year, I have been giving a lot more constructive feedback than they’re used to. I have been repeating the same instructions over and over again. The same mistakes and sloppy work keep happening, and I know they can do the work because when I tell them to fix or follow up with something, they do. However, when they do a basically identical task the following day, the same sloppy work happens again.

Recently, one of them took it upon herself to aggressively send an email to me and the “boss boss” that they all find my corrections excessive and dislike me, that it hurts their feelings to have to keep redoing work, and that I am discounting their years of experience. The “boss boss” disciplined the employee for the comments, backed me 100 percent, and that employee got written up in her personnel file. But things have not gotten better, and I feel scared and uncomfortable going to work. Is there anything I can do, or should I consider other employment? I am good at my job, and I like the work that I do.

—Can’t Teach Old Dogs New Tricks

Dear Can’t Teach Old Dogs New Tricks,

Supervising people who have more experience than you is a huge challenge. (So is being supervised by someone with less experience than you, but that’s a different problem.) You’re new, and you’re trying to change how the work is done. That makes you vulnerable to long-timers’ resentment, even though you’re doing the right thing for the agency and the people it serves.

I assume the boss-boss is your manager? If you don’t have routine one-on-one meetings with them, ask to schedule one. In the meeting, thank them (or thank them again) for backing you up after the hostile email. Ask for their advice about the feedback you’re providing to the support staff. Are there some things you should prioritize and others let slide? Are there systems you can put in place to make it easier for them to perform their duties? Don’t try to replace them with AI, obviously, but there may be templates you could develop to avoid some of the sloppy mistakes. Could you reward people who exceed standards? Your boss has been working with these staffers longer than you have and might have insights about how to supervise them. Your boss also probably manages these staffers’ performance reviews, and they could emphasize in a quarterly or mid-year review that the staffers need to meet your expectations.

That sort of approach could improve the quality of work the staffers routinely perform, but it won’t build trust or respect. You don’t have to like them or be liked by them, but if you do want to defuse some of the tension, meet with them individually. Take each one, or at least the ones that seem least hostile, to coffee or lunch if you can swing it. Start by acknowledging that you do things differently from your predecessor, and it’s hard to adjust to a new supervisor. Ask them about their experience in the agency. Tell them you’re enthusiastic about your agency’s mission. Invite them to share their ideas, then or later, about how to improve workflows or have a bigger impact. Thank them for their work. Show that you respect them and you don’t think you know it all.

Final tip: Bring snacks to the office. It’s hard for people to resent someone, even a new supervisor, when they’re eating the cookies they baked. Set a bowl of fun-size candy and chips near your workstation and invite people to help themselves. They may find excuses to stop by and chat in person, and start to realize that you give feedback because you value their work.

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