Why Employees Don’t Do Their Job the Way They're Trained; and What to Do About It

The purpose of training a new employee is to ensure he or she performs to standard delivering consistent quality and service each and every time. Yet, more often than not, once the training is over the employee ends up not performing the tasks the way they were trained. There is an obvious reason for this.

The reality is that the entire time you're training a new employee to do the job the way you want them to do it, they are already deciding how they will do the work differently when the training is over. While the new employee is listening to your instructions and observing your training they are deciding what will work for them or not based upon their past experience or their own idea of how the job should be done. In their head, they're thinking of ways they can do the job easier, faster, or better than the way they're being taught.

This, of course, violates the very reason why you are training them in the first place. You want every employee to dutifully abide by the standards, policies, procedures, processes, and practices you’ve developed so they can consistently deliver your products and services. You want your employees to perform the work as designed so you can more easily measure whether they are performing to standard. You want your workers to do the work the way they were trained because you feel that's the best way to do the job. So it’s irritating when employees don’t perform the way they were trained.

Interestingly, there's another irritating behavior new employees sometimes exhibit. New employees tend to irritate their boss and fellow workers during their first few months of employment by referencing how much better things were done at their previous employer. They say such things as: “Back when I was at X company,” or “The way we did it at X company,” or “X company had a really good way of doing this.”

Comments such as these can elicit a response from the boss such as: “Well if X company was so wonderful, why don’t you go back there?” or “Well, you’re not at X company anymore,” or “Well, too bad. That’s not how we do things here.” 

This scenario, which happens regularly in businesses around the globe, creates a paradox that many managers don’t know how to resolve. The new employee wants to show the manager how they would perform the task differently based on their past experience. But the boss doesn't want to hear it. At least not yet.

The paradox is that the manager really does want to hear suggestions for improvement from a new employee, but they also don’t want a new employee to upset the apple cart or anger the long-term workers by coming in and bucking the system or criticizing how things are done. The manager wants the new employee to come in and perform the job tasks the company way without variance, but they also know they should listen to suggestions from the new employee if the present way is inefficient or ineffective.

Consequently, the manager is stuck in a paradox of both wanting to know and not wanting to know what the new employee has to say about the job duties.

Resolve the Conflict with a New Employee Audit

The paradox can be resolved by realizing the conflict is not so much one of wanting or not wanting to tap into the experience and expertise of a new employee, but, rather it's an issue of timing. It’s a question of when the employee should make his or her recommendations for improvement. If the recommendations come too early, the new employee looks like a boat rocker or know-it-all. If the recommendations come too late, you risk continuing to use ineffective processes or techniques.

During new employee orientation and department training, a new employee should be in learning-mode, not teaching-mode. They should be learning about the new company and how to do things the company way. They should open their eyes, ears, brain, and heart so they can learn how to be successful at the new company. And they should keep their mouth mostly shut until they understand the nuances, idiosyncrasies, and norms of the company. In other words, there is a time to learn and a time to teach, a time to listen and a time to talk, a time to absorb and a time to share.

Consequently, I resolve this puzzling paradox and get a new employee to perform exactly the way they are trained by using a management tool I call a New Employee Audit. The Audit provides a new employee with a venue for sharing one’s ideas while restricting them from making suggestions so soon that they might offend their fellow employees who are happy and comfortable with the current way of doing things.

The New Employee Audit also is a way for me to clearly state that I expect the new employee to perform the assigned tasks exactly the way they are trained without any degree of variance — at least for a while. The Audit stresses to the employee that they must conform to the standards, policies, procedures, processes, and practices as currently constituted, and that I will hold them accountable for doing so, just like every other employee once they have been trained. I expect them to do their job the way they are trained regardless of whether they feel it is wrong, inefficient, ineffective, or uncomfortable.

Here is how the Audit works.

The Book

When a new employee is hired I give them a small, pocket-sized composition notebook to carry in their purse or pocket. I call it The Book. And I stress how important The Book is to their success at the company.

I tell them it's a mandatory requirement that they keep The Book with them at all times. I explain the purpose of the book is for them to take notes during their training so they can remember everything they are taught. I particularly want them to note in their book anything they are taught that they think ought to be improved or changed. But I stress they are to only write it in their book and not say anything about it for now.

Throughout the new employee orientation and training, I want the employee to write down whatever changes they feel should be made to any of our policies, procedures, processes, practices, or systems to make their job easier, better, faster, or cheaper. I want them to judge whether what we currently do is effective or ineffective based on their personal knowledge and past experience. I want every one of their improvement ideas to be written down in their notebook.

I then explain they are to write their ideas down, but not tell anyone for 89 days. For three months they are to watch, listen, evaluate, and learn how we do things. I make sure they understand that during these three months they are expected to perform their tasks exactly as they are trained, regardless of how inefficient or ineffective they believe it to be. For three months they will do everything our way without variance so they can objectively audit what we do.

Audit Meeting

The employee is also told that in exactly 89 days an Audit Meeting will be held where he or she will be allowed to share their thoughts and ideas about how things could be improved based upon their audit findings. In the meeting, they will be asked to share their list of improvement ideas with everyone in attendance. The meeting is not just between the new employee and me, their manager.

One week before the audit meeting I ask the employee to look at his or her list of ideas to determine who needs to be at the meeting. More than likely some of their ideas may require changes to the policies, procedures, processes, practices, or systems. These changes may affect other departments and, therefore, require the other department’s input and approval before being changed. Since the purpose of the meeting is to hear the new employee’s ideas and then immediately implement their valid suggestions, all of the key decision-makers must be in attendance at the audit meeting so approvals can be attained as soon as possible.

Building the Credibility of the New Employee

Experience shows that by putting a new employee’s improvement comments on hold (so to speak) for three months, it allows the trainee to gain credibility with their peers before critiquing how things are done. It gives them time to learn the history behind the current procedures and why things are done the way they are. It gives them a current-employer perspective, rather than the past-employer view they brought with them as a new employee. More important, it gives them time to become comfortable with performing their tasks the new way, hoping they will discover why things are done the company way.

The reason why the audit is done on day 89 instead of day 90 is that the audit meeting also provides a final opportunity to evaluate the employee before the end of their 90-day probationary period. What the employee says during the audit meeting demonstrates how they think, reason, and come to conclusions. It also shows whether they came into the company with their eyes, ears, and mind open or shut.

For example, although an employee may have written down 25 ideas for improvement during the 89 days, my experience has been that invariably they don’t share all 25 ideas during the audit meeting. Normally they’ve crossed off many of their suggestions long before the meeting because they’ve learned the value of doing it the company way. They’ve also discovered the reasons why things are the way they are. They’ve learned what has already been tried and what “sacred cows” are best left unaltered. More importantly, they’ve gained valuable experience at the new company and can now judge more fairly what will or will not work based upon their experience at both their previous employer and their new employer.

When you hear where the new employee whittled down their list of improvement suggestions, you discover what they have learned in their position during the three months of experience. At the same time, if the employee has not crossed off any of their improvement ideas, this usually shows the new employee came in with a closed mind and was not open to doing things the way you want them to be done. The good news is you can terminate a close-minded new employee on the 89th day without having to go through the normal disciplinary process for a tenured employee.

A new employee audit not only helps you solicit performance improvement ideas, but it also shows which of your new employees will perform to your standards. The audit is an employee engagement tool, process improvement technique, and a new employee performance appraisal rolled into one highly beneficial management technique. §

Innovative Management Group can help you implement highly-effective performance management processes and train your managers to achieve the highest level of performance from your employees. Give us a call at 702-592-6431 or click here to learn more about how we can help you.

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Mac McIntire is the president of Innovative Management Group, a Las Vegas-based training and consulting firm specializing in strategic visioning and alignment, organizational effectiveness, Management development, quality improvement, customer service, and teamwork. He can be reached at 702-592-6431 or e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.imglv.com