Everyone knows that a successful career does not necessarily depend on the number of years spent in the same industry, and/or the same company. This can contribute to it but does not necessarily guarantee fulfillment within one’s job, or finding some sense in the tasks completed on a daily basis.
Therefore, some personal situations require that a retraining is on the agenda.
The dilemma of the unknown
If you have had over 20 years of experience like me, this is a massive challenge. It will demand that you go back to training classes, work on projects and study hard with people much younger than you. Once a graduate, and depending on the type of qualification achieved and new skills added, the certainty of finding the exact position in that new industry is not guaranteed either.
No doubt, you will have to start at the bottom of the ladder to earn your new stripes.
Adding to that new positioning are a list of companies, for which getting involved with, is just a massive headache. It could be due to their overall performance, the fact their reputation has been recently damaged or that simply, the business does not generate a real interest.
It could be the credibility of this society/its own management is questionable. With that in mind, it is a matter of time before the company collapses after dangling in elusive and deceptive manners for years.
Well, here’s an example of what I have been experiencing this year…
When people abuse the system
In France, we have what is called the ‘Pôle Emploi’; in other words, a Job Centre. This French governmental agency has been set up to register unemployed people, helps them find jobs and provides them with advice and financial benefits.
One of those famous aids, is a tripartite contract (acronym AFPR), an understanding in a form of a contract endorsed by the recruiter, the trainee and this agency. This supposes to guarantee the recruiter to provide up to 400 hours dedicated to train a new member of staff for free before offering him/her a fixed-term contract of 6 or 12 months. At the end of that period, it is expected that the trainee was given tools and time to develop news skills to the point that he is considered as fully equipped to embrace the full-time position the recruiter had in mind.
In an ideal professional environment, this is what should happen. Although your past experience tells you that we do not live in a ‘La La Land’ world, that we cannot deny the difficulties of life, two-faced people or the trials on the way, you end up surprised by the abuse recruiters seem to get away with, due to their lack of judgement, or perhaps worse, because unemployment is such that it is relatively easy to ignore the most basic values: ethics.
In fact, it did not happen just to me, but to two of us over that summer period of 2019.
Knowing that Employer-employee relationships are governed by a complex set of laws and regulations which leaves little room for individual negotiation, how could that situation have happened?
The thing is, the reality on the ground is somehow much different as it is expected. Especially, when the trap any job-seekers might fall into, involves the Pôle Emploi itself as one of the stakeholders of this engineering mechanism.
From opportunism to bitterness
Yet, the terms of the signed contract were clear: the trainee should have been accompanied all the way throughout his training time – at least this is what the Pôle Emploi has validated when all parties signed the contract. A calendar was even set up with the company’s key employees in order to meet them and to get valuable information from them.
So how is it possible that the system failed in this instance? Simple: there was not sufficient consideration put in place upstream by the management that would have facilitated the trainee to feel wanted. To start with, that would have certainly prevented certain people having to fear for their actual position.
Secondly, the overall picture could have been introduced to current employees by the boss, who would have been able to pinpoint what changes were about to occur within the next weeks/months.
Another component of an unhealthy environment is when internal politics favours one employee over another. The consequence of that situation ultimately generates a loss of confidence that is potentially important, irreparable damage and creating a lot of prejudice.
Although it is common knowledge that a trainee needs to find their way around and eventually get a minimum of autonomy, this is not to say that he has to be left with a minimum of supervision. During that time, referent’s presence was close to nonexistent and daily tasks were always carried out in the hurry, which inevitably led to some mistakes.
I personally always thought that promptitude differs from a constant sense of emergency anyway.
Worse, one evening I ended up locked up in the office – everybody else had gone!
Settings and elements of comparison
It is advisable to prepare well for the arrival of a new element in the company. Accompanying the first steps of the employee by the support of a referent. That individual is generally someone who knows the business inside out and can therefore give the trainee some valuable information.
When that key parameter is not in place, the reasons for failure are rarely technical or related to skills: they are often based on human reasons and resources. In this instance, is it the fault of the job-seeker? Certainly not!
Another idea is to quickly grasp the mind-set of a future “new employee”, by asking him to write a « surprise report » in the weeks following his arrival. In his notes, the employee records everything that surprises or confuses him in his new business environment, from the most anecdotal to the most significant. That way, it reveals the distance that separates the management of his/her vision, to the impression caused by the reality on the ground.
If that does not generate any changes, you just have to consider that the management awareness is in doubt and totally disconnected with the business operational concepts and efficiency.
When outcome rhymes with tragedy
This is often what happens when company owners are not careful and treat job-seekers like another pawn to their chessboard. We can consider on this occasion, that poor judgement in planning and communication is the thread of what ended up to be a human tragedy.
Coaching an intern requires time and energy. The first question that a Manager should ask himself is: “Am I ready to grant it?”
The importance of the human factor in the world of work is key and should never be underestimated. In my case and the one of my colleague, that internship was aimed to promote what meant to be a new industry to us. It also was the path to finally fit in the work market, which had been difficult to reintegrate into after more than twenty years of working experience abroad.
Instead of that, it has generated unnecessary expenses, added further doubts in the process and increased avoidable frustration.
No doubt, the road to recovery is going to be long!…
