Managing employer expectations

[.Griff.]

I'll try and keep this brief but in short, I wanted to see if anyone had any experience, or indeed advice, on managing or tempering employer expectations.

Three weeks ago I had a telephone interview with a prospective employer. It went well and I was invited for a face to face interview on the following Friday afternoon. I won't go into details of the nature of the job as it can be quite sensitive suffice to say it's relatively specialised.

At the interview, and in the preceding telephone interview, I was very open and honest about my skills and experience and made a point to stress that while the foundations were in place I was keen to develop and enhance those skills in my next role.

Five hours later I was offered the job and they wanted me to start on the Wednesday following the bank holiday weekend. This seemed a bit abrupt but I was happy to get the role.

I started on the Wednesday and it became apparent that there's no management presence at this site for my respective team. I'm "inducted" by one of my colleagues and all the usual paperwork and documents are dealt with remotely via email.

I also learn at this point that I've been recruited to replace an existing employee who was leaving a week later. Albeit he went on holiday the next day, came back the following Wednesday and walked out on Thursday two days early. So I had literally three hours with him spread over an 8 day period. Not the best handover ever.

Like I said there's no management presence and due to the role we're segregated in a secure environment with just me and two colleagues who are busy with their own workload. "Training" has consisted of vendor-specific documentation, lots of YouTube videos and virtual vendor training.

Since I started I've had 30 minutes with my line manager when he made a visit. I tried to be positive, while at the same time expressing some concern that the employee responsible for the handover literally spent all of three hours with me for aforementioned reasons. I also took the opportunity to reflect on my honesty in both interviews as far as my skill level and that the current environment represented a considerable step up from that.

Unfortunately, the manager is also new to the business and wants to make his own impression, and quickly. As a result, any concerns were brushed aside and the overriding message was basically - "It'll be alright".

Naturally, it goes without saying that I'm doing what I can to get up to speed but there comes a time when there's little replacement for training and, rightly or wrongly, being left to stare at YouTube or pages and pages of documentation doesn't make up for little to no handover period or a lack of "on the job" training.

Just keen to listen to any similar experiences or advice. Would documenting my concern in an email be wise?

Synopsis AKA TL;DR -

Left my previous role in Autumn to be full-time carer to partner. Wasn't overly happy in the previous role anyway due to lack of training.

Spend a few months caring for partner, things improve and I start looking for my next role.

Interviewed for a role with utmost honesty about skills and experience.

Offered role but they wanted to me to start within days.

Only after starting do I learn that an employee was leaving having submitted resignation over a month earlier. Recruitment was left to the last minute.

The "week-long handover" period consists of three hours due to the employee using annual leave and then walking out on the job early.

The employer wants me to replace him and become SME for the specific vendor within weeks.

No formal training exists and I'm at the mercy of two colleagues who seem too busy to offer much, if any, help.

 

[dowie]

I think documenting your concerns could be a good idea certainly in terms of managing expectations, but (depending on the role) formal training isn't always feasible or necessary if there is documentation etc.. available. Having someone to bounce questions off would be useful though, are your experienced colleagues that you sit with completely unfamiliar with your role and would there be someone else in the organisation they could perhaps arrange to spend a bit of time with each week initially?

 

[peterwalkley]

Unless your role is so simple any muppet dragged off the street could do it, 3 hours' handover is woefully inadequate. Whilst there might be written documentation, I would put money on it being out of date, never referred to by anyone and not remotely reflecting what really happens. Absolutely document your concerns in writing and keep your own copies of the emails in case it goes nasty down the line.

Try and get in touch with the person you replaced via linkedin. Reading between the lines, it sounds like they left on bad terms. It would help you to know why and if you can be friendly, they may at least point you in the right direction if you get completely stuck - HOWEVER, check the policies in place as, given you say you are in a secured environment, you could be in breach of the employment contract you just signed. Also worth keeping an eye on glassdoor.com for a scathing review of the company.

On the plus side, you have an opportunity to carve out a role and really shine. They're clearly deep in the brown smelly stuff at the moment and if you can dig them out of it, that should stand you in good stead for the future, whether with them or a different employer.

An absentee manager can be a good thing: being micro-managed is far worse that no management at all.

 

[.Griff.]

are your experienced colleagues that you sit with completely unfamiliar with your role and would there be someone else in the organisation they could perhaps arrange to spend a bit of time with each week initially?

They perform the same role albeit using different tooling by other vendors. The tooling I'm expected to be the SME for is considered difficult to work with by most and the two colleagues haven't shied away from expressing their dislike for it and seem pleased someone else will be responsible for it. I.E me!

I've discussed the possibility of shadowing them. One of them in the driver's seat for a while, me in the passenger seat and vice versa but so far most of my requests have been met with "good luck with that!".

Unless your role is so simple any muppet dragged off the street could do it, 3 hours' handover is woefully inadequate. Whilst there might be written documentation, I would put money on it being out of date, never referred to by anyone and not remotely reflecting what really happens. Absolutely document your concerns in writing and keep your own copies of the emails in case it goes nasty down the line.

Try and get in touch with the person you replaced via linkedin. Reading between the lines, it sounds like they left on bad terms. It would help you to know why and if you can be friendly, they may at least point you in the right direction if you get completely stuck - HOWEVER, check the policies in place as, given you say you are in a secured environment, you could be in breach of the employment contract you just signed. Also worth keeping an eye on glassdoor.com for a scathing review of the company.

On the plus side, you have an opportunity to carve out a role and really shine. They're clearly deep in the brown smelly stuff at the moment and if you can dig them out of it, that should stand you in good stead for the future, whether with them or a different employer.

An absentee manager can be a good thing: being micro-managed is far worse that no management at all.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

I had a very brief chat as to why he was leaving when I gave him a lift to grab some lunch. Ironically that was pretty much the longest period I'd been able to spend with him. He cited lack of training and support as one of the key reasons he was leaving, amongst other personal reasons.

As for the management. I hear you loud and clear. In my last role we had two line managers sitting yards from us, one of which would often interrupt phone calls and/or mouth words at us or even rewrite emails she wasn't happy with. This is the polar opposite. It's nice not to be constantly micromanaged yet, initially at least, some onsite support would be nice.

 

[Slam62]

Depends on the money and benefits, if they are worth it and your partner really is ok with it do some extra to see if you can learn quickly enough.
Also depends how independent you can be, the other guys might like babysitting.
In my experience people at work often say they wouldn't want your project etc.

 

[BongoHunter]

Have been in a similar situation - dumped on a remote site with barely 18 months in industry and a product I was unfamiliar with, this was for 'sensitive' role.

I was close to leaving after the first week - but needed the money so stuck it out.

I did what I could to build a small scale replica of the employers setup in my flat (had to hit up Ebay for a few sparc boxes, a hpux pa risc system, and numerous other bits!) and then went through all the old tickets in the service desk to get a feel for the knowledge that might be required, I also trawled all the share drives and file systems I could find for contractor/vendor/consultancy docs, and reached out to the software suppliers (HP/Mercury/Peregrine) for all old support tickets - over a few months I build up my confidence and got a good feel for what was what - turned out the rest of the staff were pretty useless and were not that talented, so was pretty easy to shine after a short period.

My advice would be to stick it out for a while longer, and have a dig around for any info you can get your hands on - no matter what rules you have to skirt to do it.

What kinds of systems are you working on (just a hint would do if you can't be specific)

 

[.Griff.]

Thanks for the subsequent replies and apologies for the slow reply. Busy week as you can imagine.

 

[Hades]

Raising your concerns is a required first step. Put in an email too to make sure you can point them back at it later. Without giving too much detail about the company, what is the role, what technologies are you working with, what documentation is there and what other staff are available to try to extract information from?

 

[ivrytwr3]

The fact that they needed someone within days speaks volumes, also evidenced by the guy whose position you filled.

Document your concerns, bring them up at your review (if they have them!) and i'd also be looking for another role elsewhere.

 

[.Griff.]

Without giving too much detail about the company, what is the role, what technologies are you working with, what documentation is there and what other staff are available to try to extract information from?

I'm working predominantly with SIEM tools at present - Qradar, LogRhythm- That probably indicates the job role. Things have improved since I last had the opportunity to post on here and I think there's a general acceptance now that the situation was rushed and expectations have become more realistic.