Aaron works at a publishing company, where he was recently promoted from a coordinator to a client management role. As part of his promotion, he was tasked with training his replacement, a new hire named Rachel. While Aaron worked with Rachel and explained to her all of the office’s procedures and systems, Rachel found herself having difficulty, and she expressed to Aaron that the job was more complicated than he had explained. Rachel started going to others in the office for help rather than Aaron, but she continuously made mistakes. Aaron shared with his boss Yolanda that he had trained Rachel and showed her the records, prompting Yolanda to put Rachel on a performance improvement plan. Rachel then quit. When Rachel’s replacement Oliver was hired, Aaron was again supposed to train him and put together a binder of all the information about the job, certain that the binder would be better than how he had trained Rachel. However, Oliver has the same difficulties and ultimately becomes very behind on work, causing Yolanda to again ask Aaron how he had trained Oliver. Aaron feels defeated and wonders if the problem is his training style or if both Rachel and Oliver were just not able to do the job well.
Aaron works at a publishing company that he joined right after finishing his university degree. After a few years of working at the company, he was recently promoted from a coordinator job to a new position as a director for client services, interfacing with customers to meet their publishing needs. Aaron’s managers found someone to take on Aaron's old coordinator role, and Aaron was tasked with training the new employee, Rachel. Rachel was also a fresh graduate from university, as he had been, and he thought it would be a good fit for her. Rachel had a lot of recent experience coordinating complicated projects. Although the coordinator position was an entry-level job, a lot of the work required is intricate and requires extensive knowledge of the office's systems.
Aaron had never trained anyone before and tried his best to explain his old role to Rachel. He thought he had explained all the parts of his old job very thoroughly to her, and he also left communication open for her to come to him with questions at any point. Unfortunately, Aaron quickly noticed that Rachel was struggling to adapt to the office. She was having difficulty with the office’s recordkeeping and meeting management systems, and she seemed to be overwhelmed. Within Rachel's first two months with the company, Aaron found when checking in with her that she had already made numerous errors, and she seemed unable to multitask well. Rachel expressed that she was upset that the job was, in her view, much more complex than Aaron had explained to her. She stated that she felt lost, and Aaron, feeling guilty, agreed to help her out more.
At first, Aaron had no problem helping Rachel out with her questions a few times a week, and he wanted her to be able to overcome the difficulties she had with the role. He told her that she should talk with their manager, Yolanda, about her concerns as well. Rachel agreed with Aaron, but Aaron later learned during a check-in with Yolanda that Rachel had never reached out to her for any help.
After a few months passed by, Rachel stopped asking Aaron for help. Aaron hoped that her lack of questions meant that Rachel was finally getting comfortable with the tasks involved in her role and didn’t need as much help. However, Aaron learned that instead Rachel was going and asking questions to other colleagues for clarification on tasks. Since Aaron's co-workers did not understand all of the details of his old position as well as he did, he often found himself ultimately included in various email chains where Rachel had tried to go above him. Aaron wondered why Rachel had stopped coming to him directly and instead seemed to be going to others for assistance.
Eventually, Yolanda heard about Rachel’s difficulties and spoke to Aaron about the mistakes Rachel had made. Yolanda was friendly with Aaron, but she questioned whether Aaron had effectively trained Rachel. Aaron had to prove to his manager that he had been training Rachel for the past several months by showing her records of their emails and meetings. Yolanda then decided to put Rachel on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) to try to more intensively monitor and help her. However, unexpectedly, Rachel quit the job ten days into the PIP with no notice.
Thankfully, Rachel's position was quickly filled by a new person, Oliver. Aaron decided to put together a binder with every manual and troubleshooting tip and trick he could think of and give it to Oliver. Aaron thought that the binder would be a more effective tool for Oliver and would help to avoid some of the troubles that Rachel had made. Yet a few months into the role, Oliver was still struggling with the workload required for the coordinator position. Despite Aaron's best efforts at training Oliver, Oliver came to him and admitted that he was very behind on work. Aaron offered to take on some of Oliver's tasks for the moment until he could catch up.
Aaron let Yolanda know that he would be helping Oliver with some responsibilities for a few weeks so that Oliver could focus on a few deadlines. Aaron explained that Oliver was willing and able to do the work; it was just overwhelming to complete every task every day. Yolanda once again questioned Aaron about his training abilities, and this time, she seemed to be wondering whether Aaron’s training procedures were actually working for the new hires. Aaron left the meeting feeling very defeated.
Aaron is unsure if Rachel and Oliver were both coincidentally unsuited for the role or if his training is the issue. He feels insecure in his ability to supervise Oliver, who is now having difficulty, and coming right after his experience with Rachel. But Aaron felt he had prepared both of them so well for the position that he wasn’t sure what else he could have done differently.
Who might Aaron be able to ask for objective feedback about his decisions? What remedies or solutions do you see being helpful in this situation for Aaron and for Oliver?