In my last job, I received 1 day of training in the form of “shadowing” another employee, which meant them telling me what supplies I should buy, and then being allocated tasks to do independently. I only lasted about a month at that job because I did not feel adequately prepared to do my job well, and it lead to high levels of stress and conflict with my boss, who was unhappy with how many questions I had for him. In the job I had before that, I received extensive training, shadowing the manager and then another employee closely for the first few weeks. That job was far less involved and by the time training was complete, I felt very capable of doing my work adequately and really enjoyed my work there. In “Your New Hires Won’t Succeed Unless You Onboard Them Properly”, it says, “A new employee’s manager is one of the most important people in the onboarding experience, and gaining this person’s support may directly improve or undermine a new hire’s chances of succeeding.” I found this to be very true and learned first hand as an employee how important the onboarding process is to the job, not only in my confidence and ability to carry out daily tasks, but also in my relationship to my supervisors and my overall job satisfaction. I am starting a new job tomorrow which includes a week of training, and I am interested to see how it compares to the last 2 I had.
