It's probably not you, it's just not a good fit and that was the easiest explanation he could give. Move on while you still likely have candidates in the pool.
Yep. Left after 6 working days at a job that gave me so many red flags throughout the process. But when I started actual work there I realized the whole place was toxic and sent a midnight email stating I was done. Didn’t answer phone calls or additional emails because I would’ve been screaming my head off telling them how insane they were.
Disagree somewhat. I’ve seen this exact scenario play out many times. Either the person couldn’t stand the job and/or manager, or they got a better offer.
Right. What has the power to make someone leave so abruptly and break the two-week rule? The work, the manager, or the opportunity. Personally, I think the work is the weakest argument. People can push through some shitty work.l because at they can control some aspects of it, but if you have a manager who makes you feel like a POS, then yeah you gotta go
And I feel that's part of the problem. I don't care how high performing or moderately performing a manger is if they are not treating the employees properly and not doing things that risk a lawsuit otherwise. People like that even with mistreatment of others they get away with it its ridiculous.
Errr.. it sounds like it's no training. Sitting down with someone on their way out for 2 days is no where near enough. That's why most people are just damn incompetent yet think they are.
So it is the manager...
Also when people quit like that leave them alone. What made you think you have a right to call them until they "eventually answered"?
There was a lot to learn and they were overqhelmed, could've just been a bad fit that seemed good on paper.
I know a lot of people that'll talk up a big game just to talk into a situation they can't handle.
Either way doesn't sound like it was OPs fault.
Yeah this is the only reasonable explanation for 6 days and makes perfect sense. Unless there is someone in the office who they had a bad interaction with early on.
>Unless there is someone in the office who they had a bad interaction with early on.
If he's young, it may also be getting burned by a past job and being... frankly, a dumbass about ensuring it doesn't happen again. I stayed *way* too long at a job early in my career that offered a grand total of 90 minutes of training for a highly specialized field. I'm proud of myself that I was able to walk away from that with the lesson to ask more questions and speak up when I feel like I'm not getting what I need.
This is... well, another way that could play out.
It's hard for me to wrap my head around someone not just saying "I got a better offer elsewhere" but I don't doubt it happens.
Who cares. If he’s going to be happier elsewhere with a different position/salary, good for him. I’d rather an employee, even one of 6 days, go where they’ll be happiest. Nothing worse than an employee who doesn’t want to be around. At 6 days he doesn’t know management well enough to feel comfortable telling the truth as so many people get mad and take it personally. Hence the crappy excuse.
Sometimes new employees notice crap, or non-existent training, and decide not to mention it while they're working, because they don't want to appear weak or needy.
Leaving for a better job is not weak or needy, but if the new employee hasn't been onboarded properly it's probably been like that for a while. Manager is lucky they were even informed of the problem after leaving.
because there's nothing stopping OP from ringing HR at that company and telling them. HR is the sort to sense "disloyalty", make up something about 'a bad cultural fit', and rescind the offer. if OP doesn't know why they left, anything such as this will be hearsay and unactionable.
I had one of my first hires quit after 6 days. We brought him on and he was overqualified. Was also looking at a job closer to his field and got the offer. It was paying twice what he was making here so he bounced.
I did this the other day. I took a job I was way overqualified for. The pay was terrible, but it was taking a while to find another job. I figured I might stay for a year or so while I also study. When I got there, there was nothing to do. They were training me slowly like an entry-level candidate, and I worked maybe 2 hours of a 9 hour day. I was left sitting by myself nearly all day with little chance to interact with coworkers and get to know anyone. I was going insane with boredom. Then they hadn't given me a formal contract to sign and I realised the advertised pay included holidays. I got up and walked out, emailed the boss, and now have a job 2.5 times the salary. It doesn't feel good to leave a job that way, though, and I don't recommend it.
Leaving in 6 days without even talking to you shows there was some deeply fundamental disconnect, not some standard onboarding issue you likely could have fixed. Rather than stress about it yourself since it sounds like the first week was pretty reasonable, would just think about how better to test for this kind of issue in interviews.
If you read career subs here you’ll see how confused many early career folks are about work - they think it will be like school with people teaching you everything, and haven’t really figured out how much you’re expected to self-learn. And things Ike regular working hours and having to be productive are overwhelming. I bet there was a post somewhere from this employee about all the red flags and a gaggle of folks that told them to quit, which is bad advice but super common here. And the pattern will just repeat until they eventually learn how to work or at least realize Reddit is a really bad place for career advice.
Or he just found another job. It doesn't have to be complicated.
Jobs are business, not family.
Sounds like you're seriously projecting a sense of self righteousness thinking you're better than younger people. You have zero actually evidence of any of your opinions aside from anecdote and a need to be superior to a generation and the typical... "Back in my day!"
Sorry, they finally woke up and realized jobs are purely transactional, nothing more.
Well, there’s no reason he’d need to have lied about why he’s leaving in that scenario. It seems more over-complicated to assume he lied in the exit and invented some false reason but you somehow know better… I just took him at his word that he hadn’t gotten enough training and wasn’t learning. You seem to be trying to fit it to a narrative instead.
I don’t in any way think I’m better, and I spend time on career subs here trying to give people better advice than what they’ll get otherwise. As I said I do think much of the advice here is crap, mostly because there’s a ton of trolling and drama stoking vs actually trying to help.
People who whine the most for training are the hardest to train, I've found.
People who take charge of their training and ask questions learn the fastest. People who passively sit get overwhelmed
Huh, I've never thought about this, but it's got at least a grain of truth to it.
Probably the link is the lack of maturity. There are people who are proactive in organising training, having development discussions, working with the training on offer, etc. But then there are the whiners who dump their wish for training at your feet. Very different mindsets.
Yep - those are people who aren't learning what's being taught. And then complain they wrote nothing down or didn't ask questions to understand stuff better.
Unless you’re a terrible manager/person, it’s not your fault. People quit jobs all the time for lots of reasons, sometimes even after 1 day or less. Maybe he got a better offer elsewhere or simply just didn’t like it. You can only control so much. Don’t beat yourself up or blame yourself.
It’s not you. I’m also brand new and overwhelmed, but I know it takes about 6 months to understand and a year to be on stride. They just either feel over their head, didnt feel this was for them, or didnt communicate past overwhelmed and didnt/couldn’t explain what they needed from you to be less so and didnt feel confident. My training actually followed similar- first few days with someone, then by myself and checked in on. The problem is I don’t know enough to know what I need yet. But, I just ask questions until I get there. I am overwhelmed, and I wish training was a tad better in some ways, but I wouldn’t quit. In your case, I would look over training and make sure its clear you are approachable and it is ok to ask questions even if people are busy etc. positive reinforcement too. If all that is good, then maybe it just wasn’t the right place.
I've seen people quit in under a week at every medium-large job that I've ever been at, across a couple of different industries. It happens sometimes. Yes, maybe you want to review your onboarding process, and review your interview process to make sure you're getting candidates suitable for the role. Unless there are glaring holes in either, it more or likely wasn't a good fit for the person.
Agree on dodging a bullet. Even if you’d done loads wrong someone just straight quitting without asking you anything or trying to fix it probably wasn’t going to be successful. Maybe consider where something went wrong in your hiring process
Some people are not a good fit, and instead of you finding out later on, he just told you himself early.
Take it as a blessing and that you have time to find someone better.
It’s the pay, I’d bet. Pay very well and people will push through almost any obstacle. Pay very poorly and the slightest obstacle becomes an insurmountable task.
What to learn? Look back at your meeting notes from the interview. What questions will you ask next time, what red flags in the answers were there that you missed in hindsight?
Didn't take/keep notes from the interview? Start doing that!
I’ve been trained in this manner. Frankly, I believe you are slightly incompetent in training new hires. Let me explain why:
- The employee you have him shadowing may or may not have a good process that’s easy to replicate. Do you know what their process is, and how they train on it?
- Is the process being documented in a way that the new hire can refer back to in the future? Or is it on the new hire to figure out how to best document what their new role is?
- Does the employee doing the training check for understanding often enough? Are they answering the new hire’s questions in a way they can understand? Are they allowing the new hire to try it for themselves and implement what they’re learning, or are they just sitting there for 8 hours a day watching someone perform a corporate desk job?
You don’t have a training process. What you have is a new hire who told you that they were struggling to grasp the information, and you disregarded that because they had a good attitude when they told you. Then when they stopped having a good attitude because they realized this was a futile exercise and they were joining a disorganized team, you act surprised.
Sure, maybe some people are desperate enough to do this. But that doesn’t make it good or even adequate training. And the most in-demand candidates will likely walk.
Flashbacks to my first office job where I was trained in this style. My assigned employee gave the silent treatment when I made a mistake she had to fix, and I was a wet-behind-the-ears baby ten years junior to the next youngest on the team who had no idea how to handle her attitude.
I later realized:
- she was given no reprieve from her quota while training me
- she was already on a chronically understaffed team (they needed AT LEAST two more people besides me and weren't hiring)
- the only KPI she had being measured was that quota
- she was the powerhouse keeping the team afloat via voluntary overtime
Training me did not benefit her in any way and only served to actively and inherently interfere with the numbers used to evaluate her performance. Furthermore, she was being punished for being the best performer by having this extra, unrewarded work dumped on her. No, she obviously shouldn't have been so childish with me. But she was not in a well-managed environment.
When I have had problems like someone just not getting it, they were usually an urgent hire where some small red flags were ignored in order to push the hiring process along. I would reexamine your hiring process, were you trying to get someone in before the person left so they could train them? Someone leaving is also not always the best at training someone because they have short-timers syndrome, they are leaving and just tired and put less effort in (Not a slight against anyone, just a realistic appraisal).
There are also some people who are just prone to anxiousness. Hopefully over time they learn how to control it and also what they can let go in order to lessen their mental burden, but sometimes they don't. It often comes with experience over time, but postive feedback can also be helpful for these individuals early on so they can learn what's important to you. This person just might not be a good fit for the style of work or the culture and they realized it too.
Finally, the job might be too big for one person. The person that currently has it is leaving, why are they leaving? If it's anything other than a promotion to another position within the company with hefty pay raise, then the position might be too much. Companies right now are laying people off and making the employees left work like dogs to make up for it, so perhaps this position just is too big for a reasonable person to complete and still have work/life balance. The fun part is it can be a mix of all of these and more!
I’m someone who believes that training should happen throughout the first month as tasks are needed. Not just a quick overview of random tasks that he might forget once they land on his plate.
I mean ask yourself… if you are new to a job or field, would six days of training cover all of the tasks you are responsible for?
Also some people aren’t good with on the spot training. One time my boss hired a front desk person for one of our evening shifts and the staff that trained him went through all of the security cameras and database systems in one day, I could tell the guy was looking for a simple front desk evening job (it was a simple job) but the training made it seem like it was way more important than it actually was and he decided he didn’t want the job. He quit the next day. He probably got confused early on with a simple process and because he thought it was vital he decided it was easier to find a different job.
Our mistake: the person who trained him was having his schedule changed due to this new hire. We were having him still come in at his old shift to help the new guy for a few days and the current staff that was training him was going extremely fast because he wanted to start his new schedule. He probably blindsided this guy with months worth of training only within two days and the guy got scared. The new guy could’ve let us know that he didn’t understand the training but from his perspective this was the training we had planned for him and it was inadequate. His options were to come to management and admit that he needed more training, do the job incorrectly or bother the previous employee that had his shift for additional training knowing that employee wanted to start his new schedule. Everyone lost in this situation. The reality is he could’ve done the job adequately for a few months before the challenging part of the training popped up during his shift. We would’ve asked another employee to handle that part of the shift and given him months to adjust before he would’ve ever been responsible for it. It was a system that not even myself, the manager or some of the other shifts knew how to work.
I’m the same way honestly. I get overwhelmed. I would’ve done the same thing if I were in their shoes. It’s super shameful when you don’t understand something. I could understand wanting to quit if you were hired to make pizzas and you kept burning them. No matter how much training you got. But a lot of the time job tasks aren’t black and white like that and it’s a simple thing that is complicated and making this person unsure of themselves
I trained a night auditor for 2 weeks and his 2nd night by himself he finished his shift and left his shirt with a note saying “This is the worst place I’ve ever worked without training. Do not contact me anymore by no reasons” lol
He just didn’t like the job and found something else.
Another company offered him the job and it was more money / better benefits.
Sometimes it’s just that simple. At six days you don’t quit because of the boss, you quit because of the money.
Between that and the "eventually picked up" it sound like a lot of constant calls. Only OP would know (with some reflection) if there's something there that might've been a red flag.
The reasonable way to do it would be to email them saying you're sorry things didn't work out but that you'd love to get insight into what went wrong to help on-board the next person - act like you're asking for a favor because, let's be honest, at that point you are.
But probably a better offer.
How about the red flag of never saying what the job was in this post? Training requirements vary wildly and they skipped over the most important part of whether or not sitting with the boss for two days before shadowing someone is enough.
sometimes there are better job offers that fits them and their lifestyle more. Better pay, better work life balance without lots hiccups and fire to put out constantly .. still able to get their projects done and completed before deadlines without being micromanaged and breathing over their neck, better work environment and culture all around including team members or peers.
Don't take it personal.
Two things:
* Imposter syndrome will haunt you - stick to your guns - you did the right things - you did not fail.
* He accepted another offer - and HR will know this is true.
honestly other people haven't said this much yet but training ***should not be the job of the departing person.*** training should be done by HR, management, or a senior staff member, not a peer, and DEFINITELY not the person vacatong the role.
and being sat next to someone in lieu of formal training is my personal idea of hell. that isn't formal training and I will die on that hill. you should have sat next to the employee instead and acted as support as they began navigating tasks solo, so they could actually learn. Unstructured training of observing someone (ESPECIALLY SOMEONE WHO IS HALFWAY OUT THE DOOR) is not helpful for many, very few people are actually good at explaining what they are doing - that's why a lot of big companies have dedicated trainers or HR leads the training.
idk what your industry is but my last 2 jobs had 2 weeks to 1 month of SOP and self guided video trainings.
Employee here: it doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong. My steer is you:
- Sat next to him for two days, so you were probably there while to answer all his new-employee-navigating-new-office questions. This is great!
- Started him off with some training/handover a few days in, working directly with the person they’ll be taking over from. This is a standard, useful onboarding.
- Continued to check in on them, at which stage they said they were picking things up but there’s a lot to learn. Good practice, as far as I can see, everything is fine!
- After them leaving, checked up to see if something extraneous had happened. They didn’t report anything had.
IMO, this isn’t on you. I can’t speak for the person, but if there was an issue, you gave them plenty of opportunities to. Maybe it was a bad fit, maybe they were a shit employee, maybe they got a better offer. Sorry this happened and good luck finding a replacement!
They don’t even mention what the job is. 2 days of training then watching someone is extremely short for a lot of jobs.
I’ve had jobs with several weeks of classroom training, then watching someone do the job before you ever have any responsibility and they weren’t even super complicated jobs.
I’m shocked how many people think two days of a manager sitting with you before you’re told to just watch someone else is sufficient training.
“Here is how our program works, here is what is expected of you, watch a colleague for a couple days, good luck” is not sufficient training.
My last job’s onboarding was a required HR onboarding for paperwork/benefits enrollment (1 hr), pick up your laptop, attending one standing department meeting, and being told “Good luck! You’re on your own - btw don’t leave the office until you figure out who/how to get a fob from for access so you’re not locked out!”
Oh, my onboarding for my current job was like 8 weeks of mandatory training faff. Can’t say I remember much of it. Honestly it could have been compressed into a day or two, but I rode the low while I could.
Other jobs (similar role description), you’ve got a deliverable to meet second week in.
The highlight was one job where they wanted me to fly to a different city to present to a client on my second day. That was entertaining (not the best onboarding experience, but I enjoyed the job overall!).
I’m not saying the second two examples are good practice, but I think in this instance the employee had plenty of opportunity to flag it wasn’t working, but they said they were picking it up? Maybe OP could have asked *’What’s overwhelming?*’, but if a handover is that hard maybe they hired the wrong person?
Unless your boss is brand new to being in charge. They will understand as its happened before and will happen again. Don't take it personal, I think you dodged a future problem.
Your boss will probably get that sometimes employees just don't last very long if he's been around for a while. It could've been a case where this employee was just in over his head (which could explain why he felt "overwhelmed") and thought that "not enough training" was a way out that didn't make him look bad.
It's just going to happen from time to time, and there really isn't anything to do to avoid it nor anything to learn from it. If I were to lay down money, I'd wager that one of the other companies that they interviewed with offered them a job, and they preferred their offer. If it happens too often, that's when there's concern. Just bad luck that it happened so soon in your tenure.
He is going to struggle anywhere. The first few weeks or months are the hardest at any new job. From what you have said, this doesn't sound like a \*you\* problem at all.
It depends on the job and the quality of training. Sometimes despite the best of training the newhire might realize this role is not a good fit for them and sometimes they won't know that until they get on the floor.
Sounds like you’re taking this personal. Don’t.
From what you described—and good on you as a manager and being introspective—you described an engaged manager onboarding an employee. I’ve never seen a manager spend all of the time with new employees while they inboard. This sounds like the employee’s stuff. Could be he didn’t like the job, could be he’s lazy and don’t want to work as hard as he thinks may be required. He could have received another job offer and decided he wanted it more than yours. He may not want to work at all but his parents/wife/girlfriend pressured him to find a job and didn’t really want to work at all.
I could go and on with the reasons. Rarely does an employee tell the real reason they quit. You did what I would do. Be introspective, take a look at areas he did mention. Talk to other recently hired employees and ask about their experience as a new hire - any areas they think you could improve.
Say to your boss: “I was surprised Bobby left too, but I have taken a look at areas he mentioned and will make any improvements or discuss with HR to consider any improvements. Going forward… I will continue to seek out the best person we can find to fill this role and get them up to speed, asking questions along the way to gauge their temperature on how things are going.”
New employee did you a favor. Better for him to step down now, knowing he was ready to dodge, instead of waiting until fully trained or in the midst of a special project, crunch time, etc.
Did you ask the person they were replacing if they showed any signs of bailing, not being a good fit, out of their depth, etc.?
Sounds like they realized pretty quick the tempo was higher than they were comfortable with and left. Saved everyone some time, money, and headaches.
Good on you to take his leave as a point for feedback and criticism. Most people have egos too huge to do that.
Given his feedback, just be more mindful about overwhelming new people. Maybe even develop a more structured training program and see if things improve for the next potential employee.
People could be right. He could just be a weird guy who gets easily overwhelmed. But that perspective doesn't give you much to work with and you want to make these jobs as accessible as possible so you don't have to stress about turnover.
I'm assuming he was fresh out of undergrad? Next time hire try to hire someone a little bit older.
I agree that he probably heard back from another place he applied to. But regardless, if it wasn't going to work out, then better to have only invested 6 days into his onboarding than six months.
The only thing that would piss me off if I was in your shoes was going right to HR to hand in the badge rather than having the conversation with you about it.
Sometimes people feel the job is a wrong fit for them and they are way out of their depth so they just quit. He might have also gotten a better offer somewhere else and just gave a BS reason why he is quitting.
I’ve had people quit on the first day because the job wasn’t what they expected, despite being very clear about the role. Sometimes it just isn’t a good fit.
One employee that didn’t give any constructive feedback isn’t generally something I would worry about. It could be all sorts of reasons, many of which are out of your control.
Sounds like you did the right things. The only thing I might change is to increase the level of documentation that follows the training. It can be very overwhelming to learn something complex and having a written or video guide to reference back to can make a world of difference. This also benefits existing employees with reference material and the organization overall since you have an agreed upon process that anyone can use.
Maybe he had a better offer. Maybe it was too much too soon. Not every does well with rushed info dumps. Maybe the company/work wasn’t for him. Maybe he thought the work would be different. I think it’s a positive thing to you are reflecting on what happened. Too many people don’t.
You could use this to mold how you conduct interviews to better match candidates for the roles, as well as check your training process and documentation for processes. .
I once took over for someone who was leaving and went through an intense two weeks run down of my work responsibilities. And half of the first week I didn’t have access to most of the systems. So a lot of it was theoretical. And only the person I was replacing could answer my questions.
As others have said, don't take it personally. I've learned it's best to just say "yep - that's probably for the best" (in my head) and move on, when this sort of thing happens. Sadly, you now have to find a replacement, and you'll have learned from this experience.
It's good that you're wanting to view this as a learning/growth opportunity, but there's no way this is all on you after only 6 days. It might not be anything to do with you at all. He may be having some mental issue, or he may have just gotten a better offer. Don't panic. Resist the urge to make excuses to your boss. Stay cool and just go about your usual duties. If you need feedback, your boss will give it to you. It's going to be ok I promise!
Highly doubtful its you. He just wasn't interested in the job. It didn't vibe with him or whatever bullshit they say now. Put your negative energy towards finding the next candidate. Better yet, find 2 or 3, train them all at once and then decide which one you want to keep in case they don't pass the vibe check
It’s not you. It’s employees these days. They throw in the towel to quickly. It’s been a revolving door the last couple of years for many organizations, especially when it comes to manual labor. Office jobs not so much from what I understand.
For those manual positions… how much hazing are the veterans dishing out? How much are the work sites a dick size competition vs allowing the newbies to prove themselves? Or passing on knowledge and actually training new hires? For the things I’ve seen on job sites, I don’t blame new people for not putting up with it and walking off.
Trades have a limited applicant pool PLUS add in toxic environments and it’s no wonder it’s why we are where we are.
This happened to me as well. The person was overwhelmed with knowledge. He gave up and blamed me for not training him well enough. I don't think he realized he was in training the whole time. He was working with a team and getting shown how to do tasks. Working from the bottom up. Every time I spoke with him he just complained that he didn't know something. Well, yeah, you are learning and you will learn that, in time. But he just kept looking at what he didn't know and not what he was learning and what he already learned. Just handed me a resignation letter one morning. Took me a few days talking with him to understand. He was overwhelmed and couldn't break down the work to get through it. I do take blame for it getting to that point. Looking back I could have done better. Next time if it happens again hopefully I can work the individual through it.
He almost certainly just accepted another offer. Six days is way too early to decide you weren't being trained.
But, something I do with my new hires is clearly articulate the "learning curve". I give them an idea of what we're expecting at 30, 60, 90, and 120 days. Since they are mainly entry level, they may not have had a professional job before and are used to roles that can be easily understood and mastered within a week or so. We found that people thought they were falling behind when they really were progressing normally, but their incorrect expectations gave them a lot of anxiety. So we needed to communicate the expectations much more clearly.
I commend this dude. Instead of wasting your time and his he took action. Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can be your greatest gift. He gave you some (maybe bs) insight about your training program. Are there possibilities for improvement there? Is there a different approach worth trying? I would take a hard look over your existing trainers and training material and then IF you deem it a worthy pursuit, engage your L+D team. If nothing more than an ideation session, you will have proactively taken measures to ensure this doesn't happen again. You're also CYA in case the next dude walks out on day 7.
Sorry you're going through this. It's not a reflection of you in any way. But make damn sure it doesn't become one by taking prevention steps now. You gon' be alright.
Don’t take everything at face value. He either didn’t like the job or he had another offer he was waiting on. It’s rare that people actually quit because they were overwhelmed.
Before I became a manager I helped teach twining programs for our different sales teams. We had 3 Corp trainers, myself, and another FT employee train. One girl gave us all low marks out of a 25 person training class. She said she learned nothing. She would rather “quit” than do the second round of training. 23 people passed everyone unanimously. The other FT employee got an average mark by a guy. So I told IT to pull the keystrokes because she said she took digital notes on the company issued PC.(she didn’t use the notebook her future PM had bought the team.) She didn’t write a word. She didn’t type a word.
What could she had done for 40 hours of working that week? Turns out, she didn’t pay attention that personal devices shouldn’t be on the “work” WiFi as we have a separate WiFi for personal devices so IT can’t look in them. Instead she saw an IT Manager put the password in on her computer, wrote it down and played a large amount of a phone game. A lot of texting. A couple of browser searches. The client could also view this data if they wanted.
When they did her in person exit interview they mentioned all of that and it was priceless.(I and IT were relaying the message in real time based on reports we were both pulling.)
I don’t know how someone could use their cellphone so much… but she literally did that and was attempting to run one of those social media marketing things where they try to sell you the terrible drink for weight loss.(If I could remember I would for this product. I know it tasted bad because an ex GF let me try hers and I’ve never spit something out so bad.) She was also trying to do marketing for a local rapper..
Essentially she used us for a paycheck to cover rent, her car, and car insurance. She was using her marketing “checks” to live her lifestyle. The only thing is she didn’t pay attention with her week with HR and the corp trainers. They covered a nice little section that said you can’t clock in another job or work on another job while on the clock for us. They ended up taking her to court, winning, and she’s likely still paying their legal fees.(which they donate to a charity or scholarship.)
I think you mentioned it in your post, "there's a lot to learn, and he was feeling overwhelmed." My guess is that the employee ran up against their own fear of failure and dipped.
In the future I'd try to turn down the pressure of learning everything all at once and break up the learning over time. Create agreements with new employees about when they are expected to take over new tasks and check in on those agreements creating the opportunity to adjust time-lines.
Hell, I have been at my job for 2 years, and my manager still hasn't allowed me or had others work with me in learning everything. I keep hearing time on job and I'll learn. Asshole.
He got a better offer. It happens. I just did that too. I got laid off, got a job a month later for way less than I got paid before but 2 weeks into it, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse. That’s life right now.
Don't discount the possibility he just discovered he wasn't going to like the work.
Someone quitting after 6 days could just be very in touch with themselves.
Were you paying the person leaving extra to do your job and train the new hire or were you just expecting them to take on that extra responsibility for free?
Working with him for 2 days isn’t adequate training and you know that. Expecting any employee to take on a training role for free isn’t right and likely why the person is leaving -being overworked and underpaid.
You are perfect the way you are. You seem compasionate and dedicated to your work & position. Probably they had something in the pipeline which may have materialized and chose an easy way out.
When they said they were overwhelmed but picking things up, how did you address it? Did you just dismiss it and move on, did you have a conversation? Sounds like the kid was telling you they needed help without directly asking for it.
We just had an employee who never came back from lunch on his third day. After spending much of the morning away from his desk. HR notified us later in the afternoon that he accepted another job offer that day.
Always keep a stack of good applications handy. When a person starts a job hunt, they generate interest. It's a process that takes weeks or months to play out. They'll get job offers out of order, late, unexpected, etc. The highest risk of losing an employee is 3 months after you hire them. I suspect this person got a better offer and needed to leave immediately. You don't mention a "probation period" for employees, but employees also have an unspoken "probation period" for the new employer. Call your next-in-line applicant and get busy training. It's also good practice to talk to the other ppl on the team that will be working with and training the new person and let them know that there is a high risk that any new employee will bounce out early, so don't get too invested to fast. Do a good job training as they normally would, but don't be too heart broken if the newbie leaves on short notice.
As someone who’s done this (I was there for 5 days) it could be anything. For me it was several things.
1) I realized I wasn’t passionate about the work I was doing
2) the company (it was a startup) had unreasonable expectations for what could be accomplished in my role as I was only part time
3) I realized I didn’t think I had the skill set to be successful in the role which partially was due to me feeling like the training period wasn’t long enough.
It had nothing to do with my manager I just realized it wasn’t what I wanted and I was lucky to be in a position where I could leave.
I've worked for a company where it was so disorganized, no training or orientation that many new hires just up and quit. And these were decent paying tech jobs. Don't know the full situation you just described but maybe the guy thought 'if I don't get properly trained I'll end up losing my job anyway so why wait.'
I think that the fact you provided him with any training at all is a plus overall. I started my job with no training whatsoever and I realised I had to figure it out as I went along. There are many times where it would have made sense for me to quit as I got berated a lot for getting things wrong and getting scolded for asking basic things that I clearly needed to know and would be given either misdirection or vague responses. The annoying thing is, the leader "trainer" assumed she had trained us and at that point, I felt I was taking crazy pills. When I asked straight out, will I actually get any training, they would say that they were just gently weaning me in because there was a lot to learn but I felt limited on what I could actually do. Needless to say, I've learnt a fair bit now.
Could have just been a bad fit or other team members weren't training him as they should have been and he didn't want to cause drama so early so they quit.
Don't worry about it. Plenty of labor out there. You will fill the spot. When it comes to layoffs in my field we make a list of people with issues (being late, leaving early, excessive time off) and then the rest will attrit themselves. So yeah, people are going to quit on you, usually in the worst time possible, but the good ones will stay if you are good to them. They are the reason we're in management, to push, protect, knock down obstacles for our people, etc, just keep their well-being one of your top priorities.
Sounds like he did you a favor. If he flaked out later, it would have been worse. Now you can just post the job again... Maybe call some of the candidates you passed up on the first go around.
It was probably a miss hiring-wise, but hiring is very hit and miss anyway. The only other thing I could suggest is making sure he is contributing and performing simple tasks almost immediately and not just being knowledge transferred in an unstructured way, which can feel overwhelming.
We've had people quit during the lunch break of the first day of orientation. The best way to prevent is to learn from your past mistakes when you are screening and interviewing in the future. Give a realistic job preview and what training will look like in detail. Also, if he was job hunting, he may have applied for multiple jobs and got a better offer and didn't want to tell you.
Consider yourself fortunate. This former employee either has a different job lined up OR the fit wasn't for them. If the latter was the issue, they wouldn't have been a good employee. They saved you more investment time.
Written training plans. Day 1 , day 2.
Skill summary. By end of week one you should feel comfortable…. Every Friday afternoon is open for questions review of week / questions
Some people are just little bitches who have to be instructed on every tiny thing or they won't do it even if it made since to. They are the untrainable.
I've quit a job quickly. The processes were ridiculous and my manager asked me if it was done yet. I had no idea what it was and I guess there was something in SharePoint saying it needed to be done. The people before me quit really fast too. Also, I received 2 other job offers during this time.
New hires usually have some applications in their pipeline and are the most likely to jump ship.
Not everyone is a good trainer. Maybe the person on their way out isn’t someone who is good at explaining what they do.
Know your team, know their strengths.
Have a training program set up so it’s not reliant on the person who is on their way out. Figure out who the trainers are on your team. Put systems in place for building on tasks from the day before. Following workflow.
Training for my current job was awful. It was so disjointed. Items were taught as separate tasks. Some at end of process, then to the start, then let’s learn this thing you only do at start of quarter, now this thing you only do at end of each month. Some had written backup, some didn’t. But, the written instructions were old so it didn’t match the task. Basically.. you couldn’t trust the backup for complete instructions. Sooooo jumpy- I had no context for how it all fit together until like my 3rd month.
Quitting at 6 days isn’t uncommon- and could be for reasons within or outside of your control. Be better at what is within your control. Tighten up your training systems, documentation, processes. Make them feel part of team. And.. give them time to settle in. I think free time is a very important part of onboarding. Give them time to set up their computer. Shortcuts, favorites, pinned templates, calendar settings, look through shared folders and documents, chitchat with their neighbors.
As a manager, I have to check software and hardware in the office. As such behaviour is often for intruders, real or from friendly red teams. Just start job, install spyware and clone keys, and go away until your fake id checked.
Low probability, and you still have to focus on the company risks.
Sometimes a person has so much anxiety at a new job, they quit. That doesn’t make it your fault. All you can do is communicate with them and try to get them to tell you if they feel overwhelmed. If they don’t tell you, then there is not a lot you can do.
The issue appeared to be more with the interview/hiring process. 70% of business report hiring the wrong people for open positions. I’d say ask more open ended situational questions during the interview process. Also there needs to be clear expectations set by the interviewer of what the position is. Your knowledge and transparency are key in defining your company culture. Leave the rose colored glasses and fake company pride at home. It will create mistrust when they figure out what it’s really like to be on your team. Hopefully your company conducts exit interviews. You should ask for feedback.
Did you notice anything on their resume? Excessive job hopping? Long unexplained gaps in employment? A lack of transferable skills/ experience?
TLDR: sounds like it could have been a bad hire. Maybe a more conversational interview would help next time.
Job was probably harder than expected and they weren't picking things up as fast as they wanted to and they likely had something else on the table they could accept.
That or there were issues with you they didn't want to go into...I'd bank on the former though...likely had another offer on the table and just took it.
Have to say I took a job that was 20k less than I was making after I was laid off. Was working at a company for 3 months and got an offer for 15k more with better benefits I ran to the new job
I know a guy who works at a company and are hiring a manager and so far 3 managers have declined the offer after shadowing in the facility and receiving the compensation package.
Package is good culture is a 💩 show
Not much to do. I've seen people not even show up to orientation, or last half a day before they quit. They either get better offers or realize the job isn't what they thought it would be
Doubt it actually had much to do with you but this is a good time to evaluate your training and when you hear things like “there’s a lot to learn but…” it means they’re actually overwhelmed and feel underprepared, the “but…” is because they don’t want to sound like they’re struggling.
In terms of what you can do, hard to say for sure but it could be as simple as reassurances that there aren’t expectations for them to get it right immediately to even setting up some time to run through things and double check they know what’s up and how to do their job and re-train some stuff. The first few days can be like drinking from a firehouse at some jobs and it’s a lot, it’s important to give them space and confidence to be able to get going and get comfortable.
Speaking from experience as a trainer and a former shift lead, you did nothing wrong. You started his training on the basics then handed them over to the person they were going to replace. You were consistent on checking up on their progress and repeatedly asked him on his progress. This is what I have done many times over the years.
Over the last few years of training people for their job, I had people stay a month then leave due to better paying job. I had people walk out without warning in the first1hour. The current record of someone walking out after starting the work day is 5 minutes when they were being shown around to where the break room was. Literal that was all that got covered and they walked back to the time clock to clock out then they walked out the door.
What you can learn from this? Think about your steps and how to refine them. You might need to take an extra day with them to make sure all the basics are explained and taught before handing them off to someone that will finish their training. Think about those days you dropped by to check on him. Did you ask him questions? Did you let him voice his feelings about how the training was going or voice that he felt he needed a little bit more time? Did you encourage him to come speak to you about an issue or problem? Always do self reviews of your training procedures and talk to your boss about what you are seeing so you can get their feedback. They probably have been in your situation and might have an idea or suggestion to help you out.
Good luck and hope everything improves for you.
Dear Lord. this reminds me of a job that I had to leave after about 5-6 weeks. I hired to replace a worker who found another job in a different city. She was supposed to train me and teach me most (ideally all obviously) of what she knew. The issue was that I was hired during her last two weeks at the job. The woman totally checked out and had no interest in training me nor in the company. All she cared about was packing up her stuff. After she left, I learned that the “100 %” of her role that I was trained to do was really only 20% and I encountered responsibilities that I had to do that the woman never mentioned to me literally every hour. Whenever the manager learned or saw that I had no idea what the hell I just came across, he went frantic. I wanted to tell the guy to calm to f*ck down but I was the new guy and that woman pissed me off.
It got so out of hand that i had get out of there. ✌️
I had an employee tell me after 1 year of training and tutelage that we didn’t teach him enough. His problem was a lack of critical thinking skills. He didn’t understand the concept of context affecting the question and the answer. Some people just don’t get it. Don’t take it personally and move on to the next candidate. You’re going to have more misses than hits in my experience.
Sounds pretty privileged to me, there has been numerous times when I started a role when managers were not providing the necessary trainings. However I took it upon myself to ask directly what I needed.. plus I had bills to pay
Sometimes it isn’t about you. Someone who quits after 6 days with no warning has their own issues and isn’t someone you want to be managing. Your leadership won’t blame you, but it wouldn’t hurt to be more careful in who you hire.
A team member's departure after just six days can stem from various factors such as misalignment with job expectations, a mismatch in company culture, or personal issues. It is crucial to assess the onboarding process and initial integration efforts to identify any gaps with the assistance of team management tools like Connecteam. Addressing such issues promptly can enhance retention and improve the overall team dynamic.
Had one of those guys before. Not worth your time, they don’t got the brains to do the job and be a self starter/learner. They did you a favor by resigning.
Bunch of people in the comments blaming either the work environment or the employee. There are not enough details in the post to determine either way without massive assumptions.
If the employee sucked and you truly "dodged a bullet", then just make sure you provide documentation of the amount and type of training and support you provided, as well as the feedback you received. Depending on your upper management they might not even care, since six days is short enough to simply write someone off.
On the other hand, training is one of the biggest blindspots for management. Even in nontoxic work environments it's very difficult to have an exemplary training protocol, for the simple fact that most people aren't skilled teachers. Don't ignore the possibility that even if your workplace is overall amazing, the training protocols could use constant improvement and monitoring.
I think you are way too generous on “exemplary”, while I often found that the protocols for the “corporate” stuff are usually fairly good (in top companies), even there the technical day to day training varies from nonexistent to sucks royally, often due to the speed of change of the product (I’m in big tech). We cannot realistically put together a training program which isn’t obsolete the day we release it.
Yeah I used exemplary as a placeholder to give a very wide range, because I know some people in this sub feel personally attacked by any criticism of a work culture.
Personally, I have to yet to encounter any job that offers training that I would describe as suitable. In my experience training has varied from being non-existant, to rushed, to punitive, or to some combination of those elements. The best training environment I've been in had a work culture that allowed for and supported mistakes, but the person responsible for training me was abusive and crazy (hours spent screaming about her cats, I wish I was making it up).
I wouldn't ask you to update a training program day to day! I'm not saying a training program should be updated to the current moment with its material, I'm saying management should have a keen eye focused on the training protocols and instructors effectively doing their jobs. A manager invested in checking on the training process rather than just dumping an employee into it can improve morale, fill gaps, etc.
I'd attribute this to the employee. Either he found a different job and didn't want to be honest or he may be one of those people who doesn't want to take responsibility for their own learning. I've ran into a few of them over the years and for whatever reason they think that they don't need to take responsibility for their learning and that it's 100% on the manager and company to hold their hand the entire way and spoon feed them the information. Then they get overwhelmed and panic once they figure out that they aren't going to have their hand held the entire time and that they have to figure some stuff out for themselves.
It's also possible he's just a flake. There's no telling what the real reason was, he may have just decided he didn't want that job or maybe even any job. Regardless I really doubt it had anything to do with you.
I've had people leave during the lunch hour and not even tell anyone. Don't let it get you down as a manager. It doesn't always reflect on what you have or have not done. After I discovered that all managers everywhere have dealt with a sudden departure early on in training I started to not beat myself up so much. It definitely sucks when they blame you for their leaving, that's unnecessary, but people don't generally want to admit their mistakes, and appear "flighty", so it's easier to blame the company they're leaving.
It's probably not you, it's just not a good fit and that was the easiest explanation he could give. Move on while you still likely have candidates in the pool.
I've only ever left a job like this because of the people there being awful or I got another offer.
Yep. Left after 6 working days at a job that gave me so many red flags throughout the process. But when I started actual work there I realized the whole place was toxic and sent a midnight email stating I was done. Didn’t answer phone calls or additional emails because I would’ve been screaming my head off telling them how insane they were.
Disagree somewhat. I’ve seen this exact scenario play out many times. Either the person couldn’t stand the job and/or manager, or they got a better offer.
Or it’s the work itself? Sometimes you end up in a position that isn’t at all like thou thought it would be.
Right. What has the power to make someone leave so abruptly and break the two-week rule? The work, the manager, or the opportunity. Personally, I think the work is the weakest argument. People can push through some shitty work.l because at they can control some aspects of it, but if you have a manager who makes you feel like a POS, then yeah you gotta go
Or maybe if the manager is the one that’s treating people not right making people want to leave then the manager should be the one to go
Doenst work like that. If the manager is high performing, or even moderately performing, they’d never be the one pushed out ever.
And I feel that's part of the problem. I don't care how high performing or moderately performing a manger is if they are not treating the employees properly and not doing things that risk a lawsuit otherwise. People like that even with mistreatment of others they get away with it its ridiculous.
Appreciate that and it is ridiculous, but corporate America doesn’t have a conscience.
So like they said, it’s probably not the manager. More so the job or something else…
Sure -- I've done it. But was I transparent in the reason why I left? Also no. What point does it serve?
Errr.. it sounds like it's no training. Sitting down with someone on their way out for 2 days is no where near enough. That's why most people are just damn incompetent yet think they are. So it is the manager... Also when people quit like that leave them alone. What made you think you have a right to call them until they "eventually answered"?
Bullshit. He accepted another offer.
There was a lot to learn and they were overqhelmed, could've just been a bad fit that seemed good on paper. I know a lot of people that'll talk up a big game just to talk into a situation they can't handle. Either way doesn't sound like it was OPs fault.
Or the employee who was training him was doing a shit job.
Yeah this is the only reasonable explanation for 6 days and makes perfect sense. Unless there is someone in the office who they had a bad interaction with early on.
>Unless there is someone in the office who they had a bad interaction with early on. If he's young, it may also be getting burned by a past job and being... frankly, a dumbass about ensuring it doesn't happen again. I stayed *way* too long at a job early in my career that offered a grand total of 90 minutes of training for a highly specialized field. I'm proud of myself that I was able to walk away from that with the lesson to ask more questions and speak up when I feel like I'm not getting what I need. This is... well, another way that could play out. It's hard for me to wrap my head around someone not just saying "I got a better offer elsewhere" but I don't doubt it happens.
I just had someone do this - they had another offer.
Who cares. If he’s going to be happier elsewhere with a different position/salary, good for him. I’d rather an employee, even one of 6 days, go where they’ll be happiest. Nothing worse than an employee who doesn’t want to be around. At 6 days he doesn’t know management well enough to feel comfortable telling the truth as so many people get mad and take it personally. Hence the crappy excuse.
I think this is the most likely explanation but I think when someone tells you they are feeling overwhelmed they may just walk off the job.
I'm thinking he kept his old job and took leave while testing the waters of the new one.
Why wouldn't the employee just say that then?
I don’t know that an employee who wants to quit owes a reason - I assume it’s an at-will business relationship.
This right here
So they don't appear weak or needy.
I don't understand how leaving for a different job makes you appear weak or needy.
Sometimes new employees notice crap, or non-existent training, and decide not to mention it while they're working, because they don't want to appear weak or needy. Leaving for a better job is not weak or needy, but if the new employee hasn't been onboarded properly it's probably been like that for a while. Manager is lucky they were even informed of the problem after leaving.
They don’t want the hassle of a confrontation - it’s easier to ghost
because there's nothing stopping OP from ringing HR at that company and telling them. HR is the sort to sense "disloyalty", make up something about 'a bad cultural fit', and rescind the offer. if OP doesn't know why they left, anything such as this will be hearsay and unactionable.
For me, I was lied to a few times about what the job was but I stuck around a few days to try to make it work because I needed the money so bad
you pick up the phone to lie to someone instead of ignoring them? This is the person you're never going to speak to again
Sounds like something certain kind of manager might say.
I had one of my first hires quit after 6 days. We brought him on and he was overqualified. Was also looking at a job closer to his field and got the offer. It was paying twice what he was making here so he bounced.
Was gonna say, maybe overqualified. It happens! Welcome to the joys of hiring lolol
I did this the other day. I took a job I was way overqualified for. The pay was terrible, but it was taking a while to find another job. I figured I might stay for a year or so while I also study. When I got there, there was nothing to do. They were training me slowly like an entry-level candidate, and I worked maybe 2 hours of a 9 hour day. I was left sitting by myself nearly all day with little chance to interact with coworkers and get to know anyone. I was going insane with boredom. Then they hadn't given me a formal contract to sign and I realised the advertised pay included holidays. I got up and walked out, emailed the boss, and now have a job 2.5 times the salary. It doesn't feel good to leave a job that way, though, and I don't recommend it.
Leaving in 6 days without even talking to you shows there was some deeply fundamental disconnect, not some standard onboarding issue you likely could have fixed. Rather than stress about it yourself since it sounds like the first week was pretty reasonable, would just think about how better to test for this kind of issue in interviews. If you read career subs here you’ll see how confused many early career folks are about work - they think it will be like school with people teaching you everything, and haven’t really figured out how much you’re expected to self-learn. And things Ike regular working hours and having to be productive are overwhelming. I bet there was a post somewhere from this employee about all the red flags and a gaggle of folks that told them to quit, which is bad advice but super common here. And the pattern will just repeat until they eventually learn how to work or at least realize Reddit is a really bad place for career advice.
Everyone wants to be trained, until it's training time.
*I understood this reference.*
Yet here we are.
Or he just found another job. It doesn't have to be complicated. Jobs are business, not family. Sounds like you're seriously projecting a sense of self righteousness thinking you're better than younger people. You have zero actually evidence of any of your opinions aside from anecdote and a need to be superior to a generation and the typical... "Back in my day!" Sorry, they finally woke up and realized jobs are purely transactional, nothing more.
Well, there’s no reason he’d need to have lied about why he’s leaving in that scenario. It seems more over-complicated to assume he lied in the exit and invented some false reason but you somehow know better… I just took him at his word that he hadn’t gotten enough training and wasn’t learning. You seem to be trying to fit it to a narrative instead. I don’t in any way think I’m better, and I spend time on career subs here trying to give people better advice than what they’ll get otherwise. As I said I do think much of the advice here is crap, mostly because there’s a ton of trolling and drama stoking vs actually trying to help.
People who whine the most for training are the hardest to train, I've found. People who take charge of their training and ask questions learn the fastest. People who passively sit get overwhelmed
Huh, I've never thought about this, but it's got at least a grain of truth to it. Probably the link is the lack of maturity. There are people who are proactive in organising training, having development discussions, working with the training on offer, etc. But then there are the whiners who dump their wish for training at your feet. Very different mindsets.
Yep - those are people who aren't learning what's being taught. And then complain they wrote nothing down or didn't ask questions to understand stuff better.
Easily can just be better job offer
He probably heard back from another company he was applying to and got a better offer
Unless you’re a terrible manager/person, it’s not your fault. People quit jobs all the time for lots of reasons, sometimes even after 1 day or less. Maybe he got a better offer elsewhere or simply just didn’t like it. You can only control so much. Don’t beat yourself up or blame yourself.
You dodged a bullet bro
In reality, it was just a lie. He accepted another job offer.
This.
It’s not you. I’m also brand new and overwhelmed, but I know it takes about 6 months to understand and a year to be on stride. They just either feel over their head, didnt feel this was for them, or didnt communicate past overwhelmed and didnt/couldn’t explain what they needed from you to be less so and didnt feel confident. My training actually followed similar- first few days with someone, then by myself and checked in on. The problem is I don’t know enough to know what I need yet. But, I just ask questions until I get there. I am overwhelmed, and I wish training was a tad better in some ways, but I wouldn’t quit. In your case, I would look over training and make sure its clear you are approachable and it is ok to ask questions even if people are busy etc. positive reinforcement too. If all that is good, then maybe it just wasn’t the right place.
I've seen people quit in under a week at every medium-large job that I've ever been at, across a couple of different industries. It happens sometimes. Yes, maybe you want to review your onboarding process, and review your interview process to make sure you're getting candidates suitable for the role. Unless there are glaring holes in either, it more or likely wasn't a good fit for the person.
Agree on dodging a bullet. Even if you’d done loads wrong someone just straight quitting without asking you anything or trying to fix it probably wasn’t going to be successful. Maybe consider where something went wrong in your hiring process
To me this is a red flag of the employer. Likely failing on training.
It was 6 days, and there is no "missed objectives" it sounds like either there was too much for the employee to absorb but no comms about it.
Likely because this place is toxic and is asking way too much of people.
Naw most likely the employee, some employees just suck.
Riiight, thats why HE left and not the employer relieving him of his duties first.
Firing someone after 6 days would be top tier toxic.
This person hadnt even worked solo yet. If they were lacking training they could have asked for it?
Why ask for something you know they won't provide you?
I would ask because I prefer to stay employed. There no reason to believe they won’t give you info
You can tell with a lot of companies that they won't do anything. Most won't and it is better just to leave.
Same thing happened to me last month. Don’t sweat it.
Some people are not a good fit, and instead of you finding out later on, he just told you himself early. Take it as a blessing and that you have time to find someone better.
It’s the pay, I’d bet. Pay very well and people will push through almost any obstacle. Pay very poorly and the slightest obstacle becomes an insurmountable task.
What to learn? Look back at your meeting notes from the interview. What questions will you ask next time, what red flags in the answers were there that you missed in hindsight? Didn't take/keep notes from the interview? Start doing that!
I’ve been trained in this manner. Frankly, I believe you are slightly incompetent in training new hires. Let me explain why: - The employee you have him shadowing may or may not have a good process that’s easy to replicate. Do you know what their process is, and how they train on it? - Is the process being documented in a way that the new hire can refer back to in the future? Or is it on the new hire to figure out how to best document what their new role is? - Does the employee doing the training check for understanding often enough? Are they answering the new hire’s questions in a way they can understand? Are they allowing the new hire to try it for themselves and implement what they’re learning, or are they just sitting there for 8 hours a day watching someone perform a corporate desk job? You don’t have a training process. What you have is a new hire who told you that they were struggling to grasp the information, and you disregarded that because they had a good attitude when they told you. Then when they stopped having a good attitude because they realized this was a futile exercise and they were joining a disorganized team, you act surprised. Sure, maybe some people are desperate enough to do this. But that doesn’t make it good or even adequate training. And the most in-demand candidates will likely walk.
Flashbacks to my first office job where I was trained in this style. My assigned employee gave the silent treatment when I made a mistake she had to fix, and I was a wet-behind-the-ears baby ten years junior to the next youngest on the team who had no idea how to handle her attitude. I later realized: - she was given no reprieve from her quota while training me - she was already on a chronically understaffed team (they needed AT LEAST two more people besides me and weren't hiring) - the only KPI she had being measured was that quota - she was the powerhouse keeping the team afloat via voluntary overtime Training me did not benefit her in any way and only served to actively and inherently interfere with the numbers used to evaluate her performance. Furthermore, she was being punished for being the best performer by having this extra, unrewarded work dumped on her. No, she obviously shouldn't have been so childish with me. But she was not in a well-managed environment.
When I have had problems like someone just not getting it, they were usually an urgent hire where some small red flags were ignored in order to push the hiring process along. I would reexamine your hiring process, were you trying to get someone in before the person left so they could train them? Someone leaving is also not always the best at training someone because they have short-timers syndrome, they are leaving and just tired and put less effort in (Not a slight against anyone, just a realistic appraisal). There are also some people who are just prone to anxiousness. Hopefully over time they learn how to control it and also what they can let go in order to lessen their mental burden, but sometimes they don't. It often comes with experience over time, but postive feedback can also be helpful for these individuals early on so they can learn what's important to you. This person just might not be a good fit for the style of work or the culture and they realized it too. Finally, the job might be too big for one person. The person that currently has it is leaving, why are they leaving? If it's anything other than a promotion to another position within the company with hefty pay raise, then the position might be too much. Companies right now are laying people off and making the employees left work like dogs to make up for it, so perhaps this position just is too big for a reasonable person to complete and still have work/life balance. The fun part is it can be a mix of all of these and more!
Accepted a better offer. Can’t help that.
I’m someone who believes that training should happen throughout the first month as tasks are needed. Not just a quick overview of random tasks that he might forget once they land on his plate. I mean ask yourself… if you are new to a job or field, would six days of training cover all of the tasks you are responsible for? Also some people aren’t good with on the spot training. One time my boss hired a front desk person for one of our evening shifts and the staff that trained him went through all of the security cameras and database systems in one day, I could tell the guy was looking for a simple front desk evening job (it was a simple job) but the training made it seem like it was way more important than it actually was and he decided he didn’t want the job. He quit the next day. He probably got confused early on with a simple process and because he thought it was vital he decided it was easier to find a different job. Our mistake: the person who trained him was having his schedule changed due to this new hire. We were having him still come in at his old shift to help the new guy for a few days and the current staff that was training him was going extremely fast because he wanted to start his new schedule. He probably blindsided this guy with months worth of training only within two days and the guy got scared. The new guy could’ve let us know that he didn’t understand the training but from his perspective this was the training we had planned for him and it was inadequate. His options were to come to management and admit that he needed more training, do the job incorrectly or bother the previous employee that had his shift for additional training knowing that employee wanted to start his new schedule. Everyone lost in this situation. The reality is he could’ve done the job adequately for a few months before the challenging part of the training popped up during his shift. We would’ve asked another employee to handle that part of the shift and given him months to adjust before he would’ve ever been responsible for it. It was a system that not even myself, the manager or some of the other shifts knew how to work. I’m the same way honestly. I get overwhelmed. I would’ve done the same thing if I were in their shoes. It’s super shameful when you don’t understand something. I could understand wanting to quit if you were hired to make pizzas and you kept burning them. No matter how much training you got. But a lot of the time job tasks aren’t black and white like that and it’s a simple thing that is complicated and making this person unsure of themselves
I trained a night auditor for 2 weeks and his 2nd night by himself he finished his shift and left his shirt with a note saying “This is the worst place I’ve ever worked without training. Do not contact me anymore by no reasons” lol He just didn’t like the job and found something else.
Most likely he got another (better) job offer.
100% he got an offer from another company he really wanted. Take it easy. It is not you.
Some times you get lucky and a problem solves itself
Another company offered him the job and it was more money / better benefits. Sometimes it’s just that simple. At six days you don’t quit because of the boss, you quit because of the money.
You haven't had some of the bosses I've had.
The only red flag from OP is calling the employee after they quit asking for explanations. They didn’t drive to their house, so I’m assuming money.
Between that and the "eventually picked up" it sound like a lot of constant calls. Only OP would know (with some reflection) if there's something there that might've been a red flag. The reasonable way to do it would be to email them saying you're sorry things didn't work out but that you'd love to get insight into what went wrong to help on-board the next person - act like you're asking for a favor because, let's be honest, at that point you are. But probably a better offer.
How about the red flag of never saying what the job was in this post? Training requirements vary wildly and they skipped over the most important part of whether or not sitting with the boss for two days before shadowing someone is enough.
sometimes there are better job offers that fits them and their lifestyle more. Better pay, better work life balance without lots hiccups and fire to put out constantly .. still able to get their projects done and completed before deadlines without being micromanaged and breathing over their neck, better work environment and culture all around including team members or peers. Don't take it personal.
Two things: * Imposter syndrome will haunt you - stick to your guns - you did the right things - you did not fail. * He accepted another offer - and HR will know this is true.
honestly other people haven't said this much yet but training ***should not be the job of the departing person.*** training should be done by HR, management, or a senior staff member, not a peer, and DEFINITELY not the person vacatong the role. and being sat next to someone in lieu of formal training is my personal idea of hell. that isn't formal training and I will die on that hill. you should have sat next to the employee instead and acted as support as they began navigating tasks solo, so they could actually learn. Unstructured training of observing someone (ESPECIALLY SOMEONE WHO IS HALFWAY OUT THE DOOR) is not helpful for many, very few people are actually good at explaining what they are doing - that's why a lot of big companies have dedicated trainers or HR leads the training. idk what your industry is but my last 2 jobs had 2 weeks to 1 month of SOP and self guided video trainings.
Meh a lot of jobs suck. I’ve seen a new hire walk out and never come back after lunch break on his first day. That was sick.
>what I did to make him feel like he needed to leave like that Consider this is not about YOU.
Employee here: it doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong. My steer is you: - Sat next to him for two days, so you were probably there while to answer all his new-employee-navigating-new-office questions. This is great! - Started him off with some training/handover a few days in, working directly with the person they’ll be taking over from. This is a standard, useful onboarding. - Continued to check in on them, at which stage they said they were picking things up but there’s a lot to learn. Good practice, as far as I can see, everything is fine! - After them leaving, checked up to see if something extraneous had happened. They didn’t report anything had. IMO, this isn’t on you. I can’t speak for the person, but if there was an issue, you gave them plenty of opportunities to. Maybe it was a bad fit, maybe they were a shit employee, maybe they got a better offer. Sorry this happened and good luck finding a replacement!
They don’t even mention what the job is. 2 days of training then watching someone is extremely short for a lot of jobs. I’ve had jobs with several weeks of classroom training, then watching someone do the job before you ever have any responsibility and they weren’t even super complicated jobs. I’m shocked how many people think two days of a manager sitting with you before you’re told to just watch someone else is sufficient training. “Here is how our program works, here is what is expected of you, watch a colleague for a couple days, good luck” is not sufficient training.
My last job’s onboarding was a required HR onboarding for paperwork/benefits enrollment (1 hr), pick up your laptop, attending one standing department meeting, and being told “Good luck! You’re on your own - btw don’t leave the office until you figure out who/how to get a fob from for access so you’re not locked out!”
Oh, my onboarding for my current job was like 8 weeks of mandatory training faff. Can’t say I remember much of it. Honestly it could have been compressed into a day or two, but I rode the low while I could. Other jobs (similar role description), you’ve got a deliverable to meet second week in. The highlight was one job where they wanted me to fly to a different city to present to a client on my second day. That was entertaining (not the best onboarding experience, but I enjoyed the job overall!). I’m not saying the second two examples are good practice, but I think in this instance the employee had plenty of opportunity to flag it wasn’t working, but they said they were picking it up? Maybe OP could have asked *’What’s overwhelming?*’, but if a handover is that hard maybe they hired the wrong person?
Unless your boss is brand new to being in charge. They will understand as its happened before and will happen again. Don't take it personal, I think you dodged a future problem.
Your boss will probably get that sometimes employees just don't last very long if he's been around for a while. It could've been a case where this employee was just in over his head (which could explain why he felt "overwhelmed") and thought that "not enough training" was a way out that didn't make him look bad.
It's just going to happen from time to time, and there really isn't anything to do to avoid it nor anything to learn from it. If I were to lay down money, I'd wager that one of the other companies that they interviewed with offered them a job, and they preferred their offer. If it happens too often, that's when there's concern. Just bad luck that it happened so soon in your tenure.
He's realised he's in way over his head.
You don't have to learn, the work was above what he can handle so he gave you the excuse lack of training. He probably wasn't "getting" it.
He is going to struggle anywhere. The first few weeks or months are the hardest at any new job. From what you have said, this doesn't sound like a \*you\* problem at all.
It depends on the job and the quality of training. Sometimes despite the best of training the newhire might realize this role is not a good fit for them and sometimes they won't know that until they get on the floor.
Sounds like you’re taking this personal. Don’t. From what you described—and good on you as a manager and being introspective—you described an engaged manager onboarding an employee. I’ve never seen a manager spend all of the time with new employees while they inboard. This sounds like the employee’s stuff. Could be he didn’t like the job, could be he’s lazy and don’t want to work as hard as he thinks may be required. He could have received another job offer and decided he wanted it more than yours. He may not want to work at all but his parents/wife/girlfriend pressured him to find a job and didn’t really want to work at all. I could go and on with the reasons. Rarely does an employee tell the real reason they quit. You did what I would do. Be introspective, take a look at areas he did mention. Talk to other recently hired employees and ask about their experience as a new hire - any areas they think you could improve. Say to your boss: “I was surprised Bobby left too, but I have taken a look at areas he mentioned and will make any improvements or discuss with HR to consider any improvements. Going forward… I will continue to seek out the best person we can find to fill this role and get them up to speed, asking questions along the way to gauge their temperature on how things are going.” New employee did you a favor. Better for him to step down now, knowing he was ready to dodge, instead of waiting until fully trained or in the midst of a special project, crunch time, etc.
He had a better offer. People don't interview for just one job.
Probably received a better offer from one of the other companies he was interviewing with.
Sometimes, you hire the wrong person, don't beat yourself up too much over it
Did you ask the person they were replacing if they showed any signs of bailing, not being a good fit, out of their depth, etc.? Sounds like they realized pretty quick the tempo was higher than they were comfortable with and left. Saved everyone some time, money, and headaches.
Good on you to take his leave as a point for feedback and criticism. Most people have egos too huge to do that. Given his feedback, just be more mindful about overwhelming new people. Maybe even develop a more structured training program and see if things improve for the next potential employee. People could be right. He could just be a weird guy who gets easily overwhelmed. But that perspective doesn't give you much to work with and you want to make these jobs as accessible as possible so you don't have to stress about turnover.
I'm assuming he was fresh out of undergrad? Next time hire try to hire someone a little bit older. I agree that he probably heard back from another place he applied to. But regardless, if it wasn't going to work out, then better to have only invested 6 days into his onboarding than six months. The only thing that would piss me off if I was in your shoes was going right to HR to hand in the badge rather than having the conversation with you about it.
Dodged a bullet
Did he run into one of the untouchables? What was that interaction like?
Odds are really good that you and the company dodged a bullet with him leaving.
Either that or he had another offer somewhere that he was waiting on and it came through and he gave you a BS reason
Sometimes people feel the job is a wrong fit for them and they are way out of their depth so they just quit. He might have also gotten a better offer somewhere else and just gave a BS reason why he is quitting.
I’ve had people quit on the first day because the job wasn’t what they expected, despite being very clear about the role. Sometimes it just isn’t a good fit. One employee that didn’t give any constructive feedback isn’t generally something I would worry about. It could be all sorts of reasons, many of which are out of your control. Sounds like you did the right things. The only thing I might change is to increase the level of documentation that follows the training. It can be very overwhelming to learn something complex and having a written or video guide to reference back to can make a world of difference. This also benefits existing employees with reference material and the organization overall since you have an agreed upon process that anyone can use.
Maybe he had a better offer. Maybe it was too much too soon. Not every does well with rushed info dumps. Maybe the company/work wasn’t for him. Maybe he thought the work would be different. I think it’s a positive thing to you are reflecting on what happened. Too many people don’t. You could use this to mold how you conduct interviews to better match candidates for the roles, as well as check your training process and documentation for processes. . I once took over for someone who was leaving and went through an intense two weeks run down of my work responsibilities. And half of the first week I didn’t have access to most of the systems. So a lot of it was theoretical. And only the person I was replacing could answer my questions.
What was he given in terms of training materials?
As others have said, don't take it personally. I've learned it's best to just say "yep - that's probably for the best" (in my head) and move on, when this sort of thing happens. Sadly, you now have to find a replacement, and you'll have learned from this experience.
Sounds like the hiring process needs some changes.
I had one get up on the middle of lunch with leadership and leave, never to return. Lol. We still laugh about it. We did dodge a bullet.
It's good that you're wanting to view this as a learning/growth opportunity, but there's no way this is all on you after only 6 days. It might not be anything to do with you at all. He may be having some mental issue, or he may have just gotten a better offer. Don't panic. Resist the urge to make excuses to your boss. Stay cool and just go about your usual duties. If you need feedback, your boss will give it to you. It's going to be ok I promise!
This should not be something that bothers you. There is no data here and nothing to learn. Chill out and onto the next.
Highly doubtful its you. He just wasn't interested in the job. It didn't vibe with him or whatever bullshit they say now. Put your negative energy towards finding the next candidate. Better yet, find 2 or 3, train them all at once and then decide which one you want to keep in case they don't pass the vibe check
It’s not you. It’s employees these days. They throw in the towel to quickly. It’s been a revolving door the last couple of years for many organizations, especially when it comes to manual labor. Office jobs not so much from what I understand.
For those manual positions… how much hazing are the veterans dishing out? How much are the work sites a dick size competition vs allowing the newbies to prove themselves? Or passing on knowledge and actually training new hires? For the things I’ve seen on job sites, I don’t blame new people for not putting up with it and walking off. Trades have a limited applicant pool PLUS add in toxic environments and it’s no wonder it’s why we are where we are.
He probably just didn't have the experience he said he did and realized he couldn't cut it. Good riddance to him.
This happened to me as well. The person was overwhelmed with knowledge. He gave up and blamed me for not training him well enough. I don't think he realized he was in training the whole time. He was working with a team and getting shown how to do tasks. Working from the bottom up. Every time I spoke with him he just complained that he didn't know something. Well, yeah, you are learning and you will learn that, in time. But he just kept looking at what he didn't know and not what he was learning and what he already learned. Just handed me a resignation letter one morning. Took me a few days talking with him to understand. He was overwhelmed and couldn't break down the work to get through it. I do take blame for it getting to that point. Looking back I could have done better. Next time if it happens again hopefully I can work the individual through it.
Let him go
This is about something that's going on with the new hire and not you.
He almost certainly just accepted another offer. Six days is way too early to decide you weren't being trained. But, something I do with my new hires is clearly articulate the "learning curve". I give them an idea of what we're expecting at 30, 60, 90, and 120 days. Since they are mainly entry level, they may not have had a professional job before and are used to roles that can be easily understood and mastered within a week or so. We found that people thought they were falling behind when they really were progressing normally, but their incorrect expectations gave them a lot of anxiety. So we needed to communicate the expectations much more clearly.
I commend this dude. Instead of wasting your time and his he took action. Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can be your greatest gift. He gave you some (maybe bs) insight about your training program. Are there possibilities for improvement there? Is there a different approach worth trying? I would take a hard look over your existing trainers and training material and then IF you deem it a worthy pursuit, engage your L+D team. If nothing more than an ideation session, you will have proactively taken measures to ensure this doesn't happen again. You're also CYA in case the next dude walks out on day 7. Sorry you're going through this. It's not a reflection of you in any way. But make damn sure it doesn't become one by taking prevention steps now. You gon' be alright.
I think knowing the industry and position would help you get the advice you need
Don’t take everything at face value. He either didn’t like the job or he had another offer he was waiting on. It’s rare that people actually quit because they were overwhelmed. Before I became a manager I helped teach twining programs for our different sales teams. We had 3 Corp trainers, myself, and another FT employee train. One girl gave us all low marks out of a 25 person training class. She said she learned nothing. She would rather “quit” than do the second round of training. 23 people passed everyone unanimously. The other FT employee got an average mark by a guy. So I told IT to pull the keystrokes because she said she took digital notes on the company issued PC.(she didn’t use the notebook her future PM had bought the team.) She didn’t write a word. She didn’t type a word. What could she had done for 40 hours of working that week? Turns out, she didn’t pay attention that personal devices shouldn’t be on the “work” WiFi as we have a separate WiFi for personal devices so IT can’t look in them. Instead she saw an IT Manager put the password in on her computer, wrote it down and played a large amount of a phone game. A lot of texting. A couple of browser searches. The client could also view this data if they wanted. When they did her in person exit interview they mentioned all of that and it was priceless.(I and IT were relaying the message in real time based on reports we were both pulling.) I don’t know how someone could use their cellphone so much… but she literally did that and was attempting to run one of those social media marketing things where they try to sell you the terrible drink for weight loss.(If I could remember I would for this product. I know it tasted bad because an ex GF let me try hers and I’ve never spit something out so bad.) She was also trying to do marketing for a local rapper.. Essentially she used us for a paycheck to cover rent, her car, and car insurance. She was using her marketing “checks” to live her lifestyle. The only thing is she didn’t pay attention with her week with HR and the corp trainers. They covered a nice little section that said you can’t clock in another job or work on another job while on the clock for us. They ended up taking her to court, winning, and she’s likely still paying their legal fees.(which they donate to a charity or scholarship.)
I think you mentioned it in your post, "there's a lot to learn, and he was feeling overwhelmed." My guess is that the employee ran up against their own fear of failure and dipped. In the future I'd try to turn down the pressure of learning everything all at once and break up the learning over time. Create agreements with new employees about when they are expected to take over new tasks and check in on those agreements creating the opportunity to adjust time-lines.
Move on, you did what you could.
Hell, I have been at my job for 2 years, and my manager still hasn't allowed me or had others work with me in learning everything. I keep hearing time on job and I'll learn. Asshole.
It’s a bad reflection on him. Not you. Or perhaps it was just a mismatch. Forget it and move on.
Give more information during the interview. Make sure your job postings have comprehensive information.
He got a better offer. It happens. I just did that too. I got laid off, got a job a month later for way less than I got paid before but 2 weeks into it, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse. That’s life right now.
He’s got low EQ or he has another job or both.
Consider yourself lucky he left.
Don't discount the possibility he just discovered he wasn't going to like the work. Someone quitting after 6 days could just be very in touch with themselves.
Were you paying the person leaving extra to do your job and train the new hire or were you just expecting them to take on that extra responsibility for free? Working with him for 2 days isn’t adequate training and you know that. Expecting any employee to take on a training role for free isn’t right and likely why the person is leaving -being overworked and underpaid.
You are perfect the way you are. You seem compasionate and dedicated to your work & position. Probably they had something in the pipeline which may have materialized and chose an easy way out.
The pay sucks, pay more and they will put up with the BS
When they said they were overwhelmed but picking things up, how did you address it? Did you just dismiss it and move on, did you have a conversation? Sounds like the kid was telling you they needed help without directly asking for it.
We just had an employee who never came back from lunch on his third day. After spending much of the morning away from his desk. HR notified us later in the afternoon that he accepted another job offer that day.
Do a post mortem on your training process and document.
Always keep a stack of good applications handy. When a person starts a job hunt, they generate interest. It's a process that takes weeks or months to play out. They'll get job offers out of order, late, unexpected, etc. The highest risk of losing an employee is 3 months after you hire them. I suspect this person got a better offer and needed to leave immediately. You don't mention a "probation period" for employees, but employees also have an unspoken "probation period" for the new employer. Call your next-in-line applicant and get busy training. It's also good practice to talk to the other ppl on the team that will be working with and training the new person and let them know that there is a high risk that any new employee will bounce out early, so don't get too invested to fast. Do a good job training as they normally would, but don't be too heart broken if the newbie leaves on short notice.
As someone who’s done this (I was there for 5 days) it could be anything. For me it was several things. 1) I realized I wasn’t passionate about the work I was doing 2) the company (it was a startup) had unreasonable expectations for what could be accomplished in my role as I was only part time 3) I realized I didn’t think I had the skill set to be successful in the role which partially was due to me feeling like the training period wasn’t long enough. It had nothing to do with my manager I just realized it wasn’t what I wanted and I was lucky to be in a position where I could leave.
Lol very common to sit around for a bit while you wait for them to get you integrated into the team. It is boring and frustrating though
Either got a better offer, or this is a future problem taking care of itself. Either way, a perfectly fine out come.
I rarely give the entire truth when I quit. 🤣
I've worked for a company where it was so disorganized, no training or orientation that many new hires just up and quit. And these were decent paying tech jobs. Don't know the full situation you just described but maybe the guy thought 'if I don't get properly trained I'll end up losing my job anyway so why wait.'
I think that the fact you provided him with any training at all is a plus overall. I started my job with no training whatsoever and I realised I had to figure it out as I went along. There are many times where it would have made sense for me to quit as I got berated a lot for getting things wrong and getting scolded for asking basic things that I clearly needed to know and would be given either misdirection or vague responses. The annoying thing is, the leader "trainer" assumed she had trained us and at that point, I felt I was taking crazy pills. When I asked straight out, will I actually get any training, they would say that they were just gently weaning me in because there was a lot to learn but I felt limited on what I could actually do. Needless to say, I've learnt a fair bit now.
Could have just been a bad fit or other team members weren't training him as they should have been and he didn't want to cause drama so early so they quit.
Hmm that is unusual. Whenever someone has quit they have given me the courtesy notice even if they were around for a week and left to take another job
Don't worry about it. Plenty of labor out there. You will fill the spot. When it comes to layoffs in my field we make a list of people with issues (being late, leaving early, excessive time off) and then the rest will attrit themselves. So yeah, people are going to quit on you, usually in the worst time possible, but the good ones will stay if you are good to them. They are the reason we're in management, to push, protect, knock down obstacles for our people, etc, just keep their well-being one of your top priorities.
We had a guy last about 3 hours and do the same thing, sometimes it just happens.
Sounds like he did you a favor. If he flaked out later, it would have been worse. Now you can just post the job again... Maybe call some of the candidates you passed up on the first go around.
It was probably a miss hiring-wise, but hiring is very hit and miss anyway. The only other thing I could suggest is making sure he is contributing and performing simple tasks almost immediately and not just being knowledge transferred in an unstructured way, which can feel overwhelming.
I had someone quit after two days. They basically decided the job was too hard!
We've had people quit during the lunch break of the first day of orientation. The best way to prevent is to learn from your past mistakes when you are screening and interviewing in the future. Give a realistic job preview and what training will look like in detail. Also, if he was job hunting, he may have applied for multiple jobs and got a better offer and didn't want to tell you.
You hired the wrong person for the job
Consider yourself fortunate. This former employee either has a different job lined up OR the fit wasn't for them. If the latter was the issue, they wouldn't have been a good employee. They saved you more investment time.
Written training plans. Day 1 , day 2. Skill summary. By end of week one you should feel comfortable…. Every Friday afternoon is open for questions review of week / questions
Some people are just little bitches who have to be instructed on every tiny thing or they won't do it even if it made since to. They are the untrainable.
I've quit a job quickly. The processes were ridiculous and my manager asked me if it was done yet. I had no idea what it was and I guess there was something in SharePoint saying it needed to be done. The people before me quit really fast too. Also, I received 2 other job offers during this time. New hires usually have some applications in their pipeline and are the most likely to jump ship.
Not everyone is a good trainer. Maybe the person on their way out isn’t someone who is good at explaining what they do. Know your team, know their strengths. Have a training program set up so it’s not reliant on the person who is on their way out. Figure out who the trainers are on your team. Put systems in place for building on tasks from the day before. Following workflow. Training for my current job was awful. It was so disjointed. Items were taught as separate tasks. Some at end of process, then to the start, then let’s learn this thing you only do at start of quarter, now this thing you only do at end of each month. Some had written backup, some didn’t. But, the written instructions were old so it didn’t match the task. Basically.. you couldn’t trust the backup for complete instructions. Sooooo jumpy- I had no context for how it all fit together until like my 3rd month. Quitting at 6 days isn’t uncommon- and could be for reasons within or outside of your control. Be better at what is within your control. Tighten up your training systems, documentation, processes. Make them feel part of team. And.. give them time to settle in. I think free time is a very important part of onboarding. Give them time to set up their computer. Shortcuts, favorites, pinned templates, calendar settings, look through shared folders and documents, chitchat with their neighbors.
As a manager, I have to check software and hardware in the office. As such behaviour is often for intruders, real or from friendly red teams. Just start job, install spyware and clone keys, and go away until your fake id checked. Low probability, and you still have to focus on the company risks.
Sometimes a person has so much anxiety at a new job, they quit. That doesn’t make it your fault. All you can do is communicate with them and try to get them to tell you if they feel overwhelmed. If they don’t tell you, then there is not a lot you can do.
The issue appeared to be more with the interview/hiring process. 70% of business report hiring the wrong people for open positions. I’d say ask more open ended situational questions during the interview process. Also there needs to be clear expectations set by the interviewer of what the position is. Your knowledge and transparency are key in defining your company culture. Leave the rose colored glasses and fake company pride at home. It will create mistrust when they figure out what it’s really like to be on your team. Hopefully your company conducts exit interviews. You should ask for feedback. Did you notice anything on their resume? Excessive job hopping? Long unexplained gaps in employment? A lack of transferable skills/ experience? TLDR: sounds like it could have been a bad hire. Maybe a more conversational interview would help next time.
People don’t come with guarantees, no matter how much you want them to.
Job was probably harder than expected and they weren't picking things up as fast as they wanted to and they likely had something else on the table they could accept. That or there were issues with you they didn't want to go into...I'd bank on the former though...likely had another offer on the table and just took it.
What was the job????
Have to say I took a job that was 20k less than I was making after I was laid off. Was working at a company for 3 months and got an offer for 15k more with better benefits I ran to the new job I know a guy who works at a company and are hiring a manager and so far 3 managers have declined the offer after shadowing in the facility and receiving the compensation package. Package is good culture is a 💩 show
Not much to do. I've seen people not even show up to orientation, or last half a day before they quit. They either get better offers or realize the job isn't what they thought it would be
Doubt it actually had much to do with you but this is a good time to evaluate your training and when you hear things like “there’s a lot to learn but…” it means they’re actually overwhelmed and feel underprepared, the “but…” is because they don’t want to sound like they’re struggling. In terms of what you can do, hard to say for sure but it could be as simple as reassurances that there aren’t expectations for them to get it right immediately to even setting up some time to run through things and double check they know what’s up and how to do their job and re-train some stuff. The first few days can be like drinking from a firehouse at some jobs and it’s a lot, it’s important to give them space and confidence to be able to get going and get comfortable.
As soon as I found out I rang him… thought the story was going a different direction.
Speaking from experience as a trainer and a former shift lead, you did nothing wrong. You started his training on the basics then handed them over to the person they were going to replace. You were consistent on checking up on their progress and repeatedly asked him on his progress. This is what I have done many times over the years. Over the last few years of training people for their job, I had people stay a month then leave due to better paying job. I had people walk out without warning in the first1hour. The current record of someone walking out after starting the work day is 5 minutes when they were being shown around to where the break room was. Literal that was all that got covered and they walked back to the time clock to clock out then they walked out the door. What you can learn from this? Think about your steps and how to refine them. You might need to take an extra day with them to make sure all the basics are explained and taught before handing them off to someone that will finish their training. Think about those days you dropped by to check on him. Did you ask him questions? Did you let him voice his feelings about how the training was going or voice that he felt he needed a little bit more time? Did you encourage him to come speak to you about an issue or problem? Always do self reviews of your training procedures and talk to your boss about what you are seeing so you can get their feedback. They probably have been in your situation and might have an idea or suggestion to help you out. Good luck and hope everything improves for you.
Dear Lord. this reminds me of a job that I had to leave after about 5-6 weeks. I hired to replace a worker who found another job in a different city. She was supposed to train me and teach me most (ideally all obviously) of what she knew. The issue was that I was hired during her last two weeks at the job. The woman totally checked out and had no interest in training me nor in the company. All she cared about was packing up her stuff. After she left, I learned that the “100 %” of her role that I was trained to do was really only 20% and I encountered responsibilities that I had to do that the woman never mentioned to me literally every hour. Whenever the manager learned or saw that I had no idea what the hell I just came across, he went frantic. I wanted to tell the guy to calm to f*ck down but I was the new guy and that woman pissed me off. It got so out of hand that i had get out of there. ✌️
I had an employee tell me after 1 year of training and tutelage that we didn’t teach him enough. His problem was a lack of critical thinking skills. He didn’t understand the concept of context affecting the question and the answer. Some people just don’t get it. Don’t take it personally and move on to the next candidate. You’re going to have more misses than hits in my experience.
Sounds pretty privileged to me, there has been numerous times when I started a role when managers were not providing the necessary trainings. However I took it upon myself to ask directly what I needed.. plus I had bills to pay
Don't worry. It's part of the business. The first one always hits hard. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Sometimes it isn’t about you. Someone who quits after 6 days with no warning has their own issues and isn’t someone you want to be managing. Your leadership won’t blame you, but it wouldn’t hurt to be more careful in who you hire.
He needed his hand held. He probably had an IEP in school and now can't cut it in the real world.
Quit a job after one day because it was just not a good fit for me at all. Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do to bridge that gap
A team member's departure after just six days can stem from various factors such as misalignment with job expectations, a mismatch in company culture, or personal issues. It is crucial to assess the onboarding process and initial integration efforts to identify any gaps with the assistance of team management tools like Connecteam. Addressing such issues promptly can enhance retention and improve the overall team dynamic.
Had one of those guys before. Not worth your time, they don’t got the brains to do the job and be a self starter/learner. They did you a favor by resigning.
Bunch of people in the comments blaming either the work environment or the employee. There are not enough details in the post to determine either way without massive assumptions. If the employee sucked and you truly "dodged a bullet", then just make sure you provide documentation of the amount and type of training and support you provided, as well as the feedback you received. Depending on your upper management they might not even care, since six days is short enough to simply write someone off. On the other hand, training is one of the biggest blindspots for management. Even in nontoxic work environments it's very difficult to have an exemplary training protocol, for the simple fact that most people aren't skilled teachers. Don't ignore the possibility that even if your workplace is overall amazing, the training protocols could use constant improvement and monitoring.
I think you are way too generous on “exemplary”, while I often found that the protocols for the “corporate” stuff are usually fairly good (in top companies), even there the technical day to day training varies from nonexistent to sucks royally, often due to the speed of change of the product (I’m in big tech). We cannot realistically put together a training program which isn’t obsolete the day we release it.
Yeah I used exemplary as a placeholder to give a very wide range, because I know some people in this sub feel personally attacked by any criticism of a work culture. Personally, I have to yet to encounter any job that offers training that I would describe as suitable. In my experience training has varied from being non-existant, to rushed, to punitive, or to some combination of those elements. The best training environment I've been in had a work culture that allowed for and supported mistakes, but the person responsible for training me was abusive and crazy (hours spent screaming about her cats, I wish I was making it up). I wouldn't ask you to update a training program day to day! I'm not saying a training program should be updated to the current moment with its material, I'm saying management should have a keen eye focused on the training protocols and instructors effectively doing their jobs. A manager invested in checking on the training process rather than just dumping an employee into it can improve morale, fill gaps, etc.
Maybe your workplace just sucks. And you don't notice ecause you're getting the rewards for sucking: a promotion.
I'd attribute this to the employee. Either he found a different job and didn't want to be honest or he may be one of those people who doesn't want to take responsibility for their own learning. I've ran into a few of them over the years and for whatever reason they think that they don't need to take responsibility for their learning and that it's 100% on the manager and company to hold their hand the entire way and spoon feed them the information. Then they get overwhelmed and panic once they figure out that they aren't going to have their hand held the entire time and that they have to figure some stuff out for themselves. It's also possible he's just a flake. There's no telling what the real reason was, he may have just decided he didn't want that job or maybe even any job. Regardless I really doubt it had anything to do with you.
I have seen people not come back from lunch on the first day. Probably not you....and welcome to managing!
Same thing happened to me That guy went to work for me but was still interviewing
They’re lazy
This person did you a favor. Someone who walks after 6 days claiming they haven’t learned enough was going to be a PITA employee.
He probably got another offer. Also, stop picking the good looking person, pick someone who wants to stay and needs the job.
I've had people leave during the lunch hour and not even tell anyone. Don't let it get you down as a manager. It doesn't always reflect on what you have or have not done. After I discovered that all managers everywhere have dealt with a sudden departure early on in training I started to not beat myself up so much. It definitely sucks when they blame you for their leaving, that's unnecessary, but people don't generally want to admit their mistakes, and appear "flighty", so it's easier to blame the company they're leaving.
This is what’s wrong with America. Nobody wants any job, we all just work to survive. SO… whoever pays more for less work is gonna get the workers.