Actual Comments on Why Employees Leave:

“Let me first say that when I was hired, my immediate supervisor who was very overwhelmed with her responsibilities did not have adequate time to train me. I probably was hired into the accounting department at a bad time, at the end of a quarter. I am a recent college grad and it appeared that people were overwhelmed and didn’t have sufficient time to be trained.”

The Solution

This former employee’s remarks and observations appear to be a symptom of the department’s environment; i.e. lack of emphasis placed on training new employees and possibly employees being promoted into jobs for which they are not qualified. In an accounting department, the close of a quarter should be another accounting event and should not cause anxiety within the department. The former employee’s observations have all the earmarks of failure.

A clear understanding of roles and responsibilities coupled with proper employee training programs appear to be in order to resolve this type of issue. A seasoned manager would be working with employees on an ongoing basis to streamline internal processes. Well-defined processes become the basis for training new employees as well as creating a continual training program for existing employees.

You cannot overstate the importance of having a defined training program in place before employees are hired or promoted. After investing time and resources into the hiring and promotion process, it is important to invest time training new employees. Without the proper training, even the most promising new hires will likely fail to reach their true potential and will likely result in the turnover of new and existing employees. This is a big price to pay for not properly training employees.

Often times, problems such as this can be resolved before they even arise by asking new employees to take an onboarding survey and asking existing staff members to take an employee survey. If a new employee/onboarding survey was given to this employee, the manager may have recognized the lack of training this employee received and realized the inadequacy the employee was feeling. As a result, the manager could have placed a prioritized effort in creating a training solution to help retain the employee, before it was too late.

(This blog post brought to you by HSD Metrics, an exit interview company that helps companies reduce employee turnover by providing automated reference checking, exit interviews, and by measuring employee retention. The comments from exiting employees that are featured in this blog are collected from actual exit interviews conducted using ExitRight®, HSD’s exit interviewing service. Because we place the privacy of our clients at the top of our priority list; the names of all involved parties are kept completely confidential. Check our blog often for posts like this, to reduce employee turnover within your organization. If you are interested in learning more, contact us today.)