Training your replacement?

Kivun Sotilas

Hello all, just a question.

I just found out that I am out of a job, I was told that the job agency I work for requested too much money for me to be hired permanently. This was after weeks of being told that they were in "negotiations" with the agency. I spoke to my contact at the agency and she said it was bull****, my employer had never even contacted the agency.

Anyway... I am told by someone else here that some old worker wants to return to her old job and they are giving it to her, the girl in her old job is being put into mine.

Yesterday they told me I had to train her. Is this normal? Why should I train the girl taking my job? I wouldn't think that is my responsibility and feel they are slightly taking the piss. They also told me I had to get the phone on my desk fixed which has been broken for a month (to no avail I have been asking them to fix it for a month) in time for the new girl. Now they are really taking the piss..

What I really wanted to know is, is it ok for me to refuse to train the new girl or is it normal practice that the person being replaced has to train the new employee? I would understand if I had chosen to leave that I would train her but since they are in effect "firing" me why should I train her?

She knows nothing about the job btw, it was just more convenient for them to keep her.:mad:

fatboypee

Kivun Sotilas wrote:

What I really wanted to know is, is it ok for me to refuse to train the new girl or is it normal practice that the person being replaced has to train the new employee? I would understand if I had chosen to leave that I would train her but since they are in effect "firing" me why should I train her?

She knows nothing about the job btw, it was just more convenient for them to keep her.:mad:

This really depends on a good few things:

1. Do you want/need a reference from this employer
2. How long you have left on your contract (i.e. can you terminate early)
3. Your relationship with the management.
4. When you took the contract was it ever implied they would employ you
permanently?

I have been in a similar position before where my job and those of my team were being outsourced to India. No warning was given that this would happen and then they shipped in a team of indian workers for us to train up.

We were all permanent employees and were being moved into support and project work. We had a meeting and decided to give the training to the minimum possible standard so it looked like the new guys would be able but in reality, they'd crash and burn. This gave us all time to get better jobs.

I would honestly say that p1ssing off our team and forcing us into taking that action led to the collapse of the business after the indian outsourcing failed spectacularly.

Your choice at the end of the day, but if you feel angry and can afford not to train her and don't need the reference then terminate the contract at the earliest possible point and walk...

FBP.

Kivun Sotilas

All good points you have made. I sort of do want the reference as all of mine are Australian and Dutch and I need an Irish one... My boss said he would give me a "grand reference" if I needed one though.

I don't really have a contract as I haven't signed anything. Verbal contract, perhaps. I don't know how these things work in Ireland but in Australia I always signed a contract for a certain amount of time. I guess working for an agency is different as they can put you here and there.

When I took the job it was implied to me by the agency and by the company that they would take me on permanently. It was really the only reason I turned down other possibly better job offers and stuck with them.

Is it logical to assume someone given a job over you is better at the job than you, thus does not need training.

fatboypee

Kivun Sotilas wrote:

Is it logical to assume someone given a job over you is better at the job than you, thus does not need training.

If nothing was signed then you're not bound, you could up and leave today if you wanted.

Personally, I would do the minimum while instructing your agency to look for another placement and looking about yourself......

Best option to keep the €€€€ rolling in whilst keeping some dignity...

I have, hwever, made my point by walking off the job after getting shafted like that too.... that was a good feeling (didnt pay the wages, but a good feeling )

Fatboy...

Darragh29

fatboypee wrote:

If nothing was signed then you're not bound, you could up and leave today if you wanted.

Personally, I would do the minimum while instructing your agency to look for another placement and looking about yourself......

Best option to keep the €€€€ rolling in whilst keeping some dignity...

I have, hwever, made my point by walking off the job after getting shafted like that too.... that was a good feeling (didnt pay the wages, but a good feeling )

Fatboy...

If I was in your situation, I'd walk out the door with 20 seconds notice and before I did that, I'd shred every training document, invoice, sales order, transaction form and piece of paper that passed through my hands in the job that I could find. I'd reformat the hard drive on my work PC and do the same to any floppies lying around the place. Last thing I'd do is rip what is left of the telephone from the wall and ****ing lamp it off my bosses head as I walked out the door.

Supercell

If you can afford to walk out and have another job lined up..then by all means do so.

Otherwise, you just have to do it, i'd spend every spair second finding other work and the moment I'm offered it, and can afford to leave the present employer, I would.

While grandiose Walter Mitty type dreams of walking out are great, they don't pay the bills.

BC

I think its quite common to expect people leaving to train their replacement. In my company we decided not to renew the contracts for two people but to hire permanent staff to replace them. In both cases the contractor who was leaving had to train the new permanent staff. Neither contractors had an issue with it.

luckat

I've done this myself - voluntarily given the complex information on all the contacts and phone numbers and methods to my in-house replacement in a company that sacked me. The people around us were astonished that I'd give a day of my time for free to train her - but I didn't see any point in making life hard for her just because her bosses were greedy, conscienceless people. But that was my choice

Your employers, Kivun, have my nomination for the annual Jockey's Bollocks award.

Kivun Sotilas

Darragh29 wrote:

If I was in your situation, I'd walk out the door with 20 seconds notice and before I did that, I'd shred every training document, invoice, sales order, transaction form and piece of paper that passed through my hands in the job that I could find. I'd reformat the hard drive on my work PC and do the same to any floppies lying around the place. Last thing I'd do is rip what is left of the telephone from the wall and ****ing lamp it off my bosses head as I walked out the door.

Haha well this made me smile atleast. Especially the part about reformatting any floppies laying around the place. Overkill.

I have applied for alot of jobs and spoken to the agency but nothing yet (it's only been a day though)

In Australia I did train my replacements several times but didn't mind as I knew it was a short contract and had no intentions of staying but I guess I am more annoyed due to the fact that I was told so many times it would be permanent.

Lucky for me our inhouse computer programs are so unreliable, having a moment that they are actually working long enough to train someone is not going to happen. (I was actually working on a report for them about the program and have done most of the testing for it so when it farks up again noone will know what to do)

I'm casting out my rod for a new job so depending on who/what bites, I will decide what to do then. I have to keep reminding myself that the company does what is best for them and I need to do the same. Loyalty doesn't get rewarded in employment it seems.

qwertz

Were you hired as a temp/agency worker?

giddyup

Maybe I'm missing something here....you work for money - correct? Your employer who pays you that money asks you do something which seems pretty reasonable - train another person on the job you are familar with. It's the employers prerogative to shuffle around their perms and if thats at the expense of a temp or contractor then so be it. Maybe I'm old-school but I think you should generally do your job according to your conditions of employment / job-spec / contract or whatever and just get on with it. Training people to fail - destroying documents etc. - pure infantile nonsense which probably says more about the professionalism of someone who would do this and maybe goes someway to explaining why they are being pushed out of a job or cant convert from temp to perm. (caveats: (1)temp or contract is what many people want to do (2) some employers are just mean bastards but that dosent change the fact that if they are paying you then just do the job - if you don't like the pay or the job then walk).

fatboypee

Maybe I'm missing something here....you work for money - correct? Your employer who pays you that money asks you do something which seems pretty reasonable - train another person on the job you are familar with.

The OP has posted that he/she is being "Replaced" in their current role after many affirmations that they would be made permanent in THAT role, how therefore do you see that as reasonable and without issue ?

It's the employers prerogative to shuffle around their perms and if thats at the expense of a temp or contractor then so be it. Maybe I'm old-school but I think you should generally do your job according to your conditions of employment / job-spec / contract or whatever and just get on with it.

Absolutely... (point 1) there is no contract (point 2), without second guessing the OP in this I would wager that there is at very least a modicum of "good-will" and "encouragement" banking going on by the employer to get the OP to give more than the norm in the hope/expectation of being made permanent in the full knowledge that this would never come to pass. This is dubious if not immorral on the part of the employer.

Training people to fail - destroying documents etc. - pure infantile nonsense which probably says more about the professionalism of someone who would do this and maybe goes someway to explaining why they are being pushed out of a job or cant convert from temp to perm. (caveats: (1)temp or contract is what many people want to do (2) some employers are just mean bastards but that dosent change the fact that if they are paying you then just do the job - if you don't like the pay or the job then walk).

I struggle to see how you can denegrade the OP, casting aspersions upon their professionalism in this regard. the OP has neither indicated their intent to do this or given any indication of this as a likely outcome.
The additional point I would make here is that taking my first point regarding the employers leverage of the OP in this regard then the OP would be fully within their rights to continue, in your words "do your job according to your conditions of employment" and choose a time that suits them to leave, paying lip-service to any requests of such a nature. If that is construed as infantile then fair enough.

FBP.

giddyup

I'm not a fan of this quoting lark - it's a pedants game. It's reasonable because unless you have it in writing these affirmations aren't worth the etc. etc. Again, thats the employers prerogative. They're still paying you to do a job so get on with it or leave. My point remains that doing silly things as suggested by some of the OPs respondents is in my view infantile.

I did not denigrate the OP in any way. Read that part again. I'm talking about the actions and the people who carry them out (that would include you). You collapsed a company. What a prince. Do you think there is anything professional about behaving in that way?

fatboypee

posted twice..

fatboypee

giddyup wrote:

I'm talking about the actions and the people who carry them out (that would include you). You collapsed a company. What a prince. Do you think there is anything professional about behaving in that way?

Point of order which goes to the point of my comment in it's entirety, I did not collapse a company. That particular company collapsed due to a failure of it's policy to outsource key staff and business processes without due dilligence, consideration or consultation with those key members of staff, placing them in an immediate impossible position of effectively being made redundant,adding insult to that by insisting those key employees train their replacements (what do you think they expected to happen?)

We simply made a conscious descision (after verbalising our objections in every other way open to us first) not to co-operate.

In this aspect, the only thing that could be construed as immature was to "do our jobs according to our conditions of employment", those conditions did not in any way contain the requirement to train our replacements. Therefore we did not.

So, to my question, what would you do (honestly now ) if you were placed in such a situation as the OP or mine, (bearing in mind the point made earlier regarding possibility of the cynical manipulation of the OP)??

Would you Smile, turn the other cheek, say its OK and be utterly and implaccably professional ?

I'm quite sure you would, I really am...

Darragh29

fatboypee wrote:

Point of order which goes to the point of my comment in it's entirety, I did not collapse a company. That particular company collapsed due to a failure of it's policy to outsource key staff and business processes without due dilligence, consideration or consultation with those key members of staff, placing them in an immediate impossible position of effectively being made redundant,adding insult to that by insisting those key employees train their replacements (what do you think they expected to happen?)

We simply made a conscious descision (after verbalising our objections in every other way open to us first) not to co-operate.

In this aspect, the only thing that could be construed as immature was to "do our jobs according to our conditions of employment", those conditions did not in any way contain the requirement to train our replacements. Therefore we did not.

So, to my question, what would you do (honestly now ) if you were placed in such a situation as the OP or mine, (bearing in mind the point made earlier regarding possibility of the cynical manipulation of the OP)??

Would you Smile, turn the other cheek, say its OK and be utterly and implaccably professional ?

I'm quite sure you would, I really am...

You were dead right. The standard of management in workplaces in Ireland is beyond useless. Nobody should ever feel this frustrated in the workplace. If your boss was competent, you would feel like you had dignity where you worked and you could discuss matters openly and objectively to the mutual benefit of yourself as an employee and also to your employer. If you have to quit your job, your boss has failed in his or her job.

Kivun Sotilas

giddyup wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something here....you work for money - correct? Your employer who pays you that money asks you do something which seems pretty reasonable - train another person on the job you are familar with. It's the employers prerogative to shuffle around their perms and if thats at the expense of a temp or contractor then so be it. Maybe I'm old-school but I think you should generally do your job according to your conditions of employment / job-spec / contract or whatever and just get on with it. Training people to fail - destroying documents etc. - pure infantile nonsense which probably says more about the professionalism of someone who would do this and maybe goes someway to explaining why they are being pushed out of a job or cant convert from temp to perm. (caveats: (1)temp or contract is what many people want to do (2) some employers are just mean bastards but that dosent change the fact that if they are paying you then just do the job - if you don't like the pay or the job then walk).

I never said I would train the replacement to fail nor that I wouldn't do it. Not doing it and not wanting to do it are 2 different things.

I just wanted to know if it was regular practice after screwing someone around so much, even lying to them, to ask them to train their replacement. You guys have answered my question now. Yes it is, if you don't want to do it then you can legally leave. Thank you!

I do my job as it is written on the specs. Training is not in the specs but if I have to do it I will do it anyway. That's that. I might just make a handbook for the job so noone ever has to train anyone again.

An update: Yesterday my boss came to me and said that they had changed their mind and wanted me to stay another few months (I think it has to do with the fact that noone else seems to know how to use our new crappy computer system and I am mid way helping them fix it) possibly working alongside this other girl..... in the same desk... wtf? I really don't want to stay here anymore but until I find another job I probably will have to do it.

Perhaps next they will fire me! This place is so moody. Who knows what joys tomorrow will bring... :rolleyes:

shoegirl

Kivun Sotilas wrote:

I don't really have a contract as I haven't signed anything. Verbal contract, perhaps. I don't know how these things work in Ireland but in Australia I always signed a contract for a certain amount of time. I guess working for an agency is different as they can put you here and there.

When I took the job it was implied to me by the agency and by the company that they would take me on permanently. It was really the only reason I turned down other possibly better job offers and stuck with them.

Is it logical to assume someone given a job over you is better at the job than you, thus does not need training.

This is Ireland, and unfortunately in a lot of businesses and other areas, this is the way things work - its not what you know and what you can do, but who you know and how much they will do for you.

Best bet is to give her absolute minimum training as previous poster suggested, so that once you're gone she'll "crash and burn." Its not your problem anyway, its your employers since they decided to dump you unceremoniously.

I'd suggest doing the minimum required, get the reference, and get out. You'll never get on with an employer like that anyway, they'll always find some crony to put above good workers, and will always fail on that alone.

Kivun Sotilas

shoegirl wrote:

This is Ireland, and unfortunately in a lot of businesses and other areas, this is the way things work - its not what you know and what you can do, but who you know and how much they will do for you.

Best bet is to give her absolute minimum training as previous poster suggested, so that once you're gone she'll "crash and burn." Its not your problem anyway, its your employers since they decided to dump you unceremoniously.

I'd suggest doing the minimum required, get the reference, and get out. You'll never get on with an employer like that anyway, they'll always find some crony to put above good workers, and will always fail on that alone.

Do you suggest I get a written reference? It seems to differ for each country, do they hold any value in Ireland? I think I should get one anyway.

qwertz

Why not ask for a written reference now since they will let you go eventually? Then you don't have to worry about getting one anymore, regardless what you choose to do performance wise while still in your current job.

blorg

Generally a new employer will want to speak to referees, irrespective of whether or not they have provided a written reference, so be wary of burning your bridges.

Kivun Sotilas

Just thought I would make a small update to my thread.

Well I am still here, still being treated like a brown dog....... I have been busy applying for jobs but so far have not had any real offers yet. The place I work for asked me to stay on for another 2 months because noone else knows how to use their computer system properly and I am working alongside my replacement.... training her, although she won't do anything I tell her.

She is already complaining about hating the job......

I was told by several people already that they were told I was not being kept on because I am returning to Australia but not once have I ever said or implied that I was leaving Ireland to go back to Australia. As I am not invited to our meetings and haven't been since I worked here I have no idea who or where this is coming from.

I have asked my boss for a written reference but so far nothing... too busy...

I spoke to the agency I work for today and complained about my treatment here and they offered to send me out some new job specs to my email. No email, I rang them and they said that they were sorry but they don't actually send out job specs to people who are working for a client. Although they had just said that they would send them to me and sympathised with me for the treatment I have had here...

Today noone else is here and I am "filling in" for 3 other people including my replacement as she hasn't done any of the training tasks I gave her.

Anyone got any suggestions of a good agency or suggestions of companies I should send my cv to? I would love to study to avoid this crap in the future but it seems hopeless as I could never afford to live if I was at school all day.

BossArky

Kivun Sotilas wrote:

working alongside this other girl..... in the same desk...

I hope she doesn't mind you posting this when she is looking at the screen so.

BossArky

Kivun Sotilas wrote:

Anyone got any suggestions of a good agency or suggestions of companies I should send my cv to?

www.jobserve.com

Kivun Sotilas

BossArky wrote:

I hope she doesn't mind you posting this when she is looking at the screen so.

Well as usual she isn't even here to be trained.. she could be outside smoking or something. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the link.

Random

luckat wrote:

I've done this myself - voluntarily given the complex information on all the contacts and phone numbers and methods to my in-house replacement in a company that sacked me. The people around us were astonished that I'd give a day of my time for free to train her - but I didn't see any point in making life hard for her just because her bosses were greedy, conscienceless people. But that was my choice

Your employers, Kivun, have my nomination for the annual Jockey's Bollocks award.

Working a day for a company which you just left, without any pay or compensation? That's just you getting taken for a ride ..