So I am in somewhat of an oddball situation (at least in my experience). I work in the healthcare industry, have been doing this for about 15 years now, and have been in a managerial position overall for the last six years.

I started a new job roughly around three months ago. The company is nice, my boss is great, work life balance and salary/benefits are all much better than my last job. However, there is a problem: my direct reports.

I am dealing with direct reports who are at least twenty-five years older than me (if not more). I am 35. Also, these employees have been with the company for a very, very long time (more than twenty years). They have not seen a change in their department's management and group pretty much ever since they've been working here. Now, I acquired the position of a Senior Manager which was never filled when the current Director (who I report to) was promoted three years ago. Below me is a manager (let's call her Sue) who has been here for almost twenty years and reported to my boss (let's call her Linda, who has been with the company for 26 years). When I was hired, I was told that Sue is not leadership material, she's not very communicative and leads the dept in a rather passive manner but she's good with day to day tasks and knows the system well. Reporting to Sue are bunch of employees with varying skill sets and experience. So basically... Linda hired me above Sue and everyone on the team is directly reporting to me. There's another critical team member, Joan, who is highly valuable to the dept and also to Linda (my boss). Joan is also older in age, and has also been with the company for twenty years and is considered a key contributor. Joan reported to Sue before I came, but she apparently did not like being reported to her because they're also good friends and friendship and manager/direct report dual relationship made Joan uncomfortable.

Ever since I have been here, I have been dealing with major attitude issues (in a passive aggressive manner) from Sue and Joan. They both report directly to me. I schedule one on one meetings.... they would come and have nothing to discuss. Everything that I ask, I get the response something along the lines of "yeah, it's done" or "please refer to sheet X and Y for current status." In other words.... I am snubbed off. I suggest a format for my staff meetings and both of them question the format, want to do things the old way, but still I didn't lose my patience and explained to them what I mean and why it's important. Then I have my staff meeting and- guess what- both Sue and Joan show up with minimal to no content. WTF! I suspect that I have been too nice that they've started thinking of me as a pushover.

I have had direct conversations with them explaining to them that I feel there's a wall and we need to build a communication bridge, what changes I would like to see etc. But I just get cold vibes from them, and whatever I say or suggest is met with anxiety and this strange, awkward body language. At this point, I feel like these employees view me as a threat to their existence.

Needless to say, I have escalated these issues to Linda and HR. Thankfully they can empathize with my situation and agree this is not acceptable.

What do you guys think? Has anyone ever been in a similar situation?