Actual Comments of Why Employees Leave
“Lack of proper training and support was one of the major reasons I left. I spent the first two days of employment in on-boarding. After this, I spent the rest of the week doing the on-line training. During the team meeting on the following Monday, I was asked why I was not already coding and I explained that I was still doing the online training and hadn’t seen the program specs. I was informed that I needed to stop the training and start coding without even knowing where to find the code. Mainframe COBOL and I-Series COBOL is NOT the same and I was being told “COBOL is COBOL” when asking senior team members for advice on how to access the files/tables or how the programs worked.”
The Solution
All companies assimilate new employees into the organization. Most companies do a very poor job of onboarding new employees and view new hire onboarding as a means to get all the required paperwork completed and introduce the new employee to others in the organization. Other organizations treat onboarding as a strategic initiative within talent management and they put a lot of time and effort into making the new hire onboarding process meaningful to new employees. One element of the strategy can be assigning a mentor or “buddy” to new employees. Well-designed onboarding programs can be a very powerful tool for employers and can increase productivity, build loyalty and engagement, and help new associates succeed in their new environment. Employee onboarding is an extension of the recruiting process and is an organization’s first opportunity to make a good impression on individuals after they have accepted an employment offer.
This person completed new hire onboarding and was working through the job-specific online training. What seems to be missing is the manager communicating clear expectations to the new employee with respect to when the online training was to be completed, providing tools (program specs) required to do the job, how to access the code, and information about the upcoming work assignment. A mentor could have provided much-needed guidance and minimized the employee’s frustration. The company’s employee onboarding process has the potential of setting new employees up for failure.
This was a missed opportunity for making a good impression on this new employee and caused this person to leave. The combination of a well-defined onboarding process, communication between the manager and the new employee, and a mentor may have negated this termination. An additional resource your company can utilize is an employee onboarding survey. Receiving feedback from your newly onboarded employees is a great way to continuously improve your new-hire program and keep your new employees retained.
HSD Metrics offers new hire, stay, and exit interview platforms that can help your business improve employee engagement, as well as employee experience and retention. If you are interested in learning more, contact us today.
