Why do people have a negative attitude towards new employees?

Question

Why are so many people so negative towards the new employee? If they make a mistake, instead of saying something positive like "Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it.", they say something like "What are you? Retarded?". If they're not doing something fast enough, instead of saying "We try to get things done in a quick pace", they say "You're a slow worker.". Why is this? Can't they understand that "new" means exactly that: NEW. The new person has to "get their hands dirty" before they can fluently move from one thing to the next. They don't know where everything is. They haven't been trained on everything yet. I wish these people would realize that having a bad attitude towards the new person is actually WORSE in the long run. I also believe that a lot of people nowadays are not qualified to train other people. They always show them the most basic way of doing something, not the optimum way that the company looks for. It seems a lot of details are skipped in the training process. Why?

Also, this question isn't about me specifically. I'm asking in regards to new people in general. However, when I am the new person at a job, I do not let other people bully me. I will explain to them they are being negative and they need to be more positive.

People, stop saying I work at the wrong place. You all know very well that it is a very big problem in companies today. Stop thinking negative, negative, negative.

yousedummy, I question your management skills.

Answer 1

It's happening because your manager is allowing it to happen. Some employees consider training a new person to be a burden or they are hateful because it makes them feel superior. Then they can talk about the new employee - it's good gossip.

Another problem is if there is no training checklist, to ensure training occurs in the right sequence and is complete. The training is haphazard, the trainer is frustrated, and the new employee is not trained properly.

Unfortunately, nothing will make a new employee fail faster or hate a job more than to have to endure such a negative training experience. It can cost a company a lot of money to have new employee turnover when the problem could be resolved with the right attitude and environment.

When I took over as a laboratory director, there was an existing culture to ignore students and new employees and to try to make them fail. The employees stated it wasn't their job to train people. Well, I fixed that right away. I made it a part of their job descriptions and evaluated them on their performance. I also explained to everyone that it was in their best interest to train people and train them well; otherwise they would end up working with people who couldn't pull their share of the workload. I also made it clear that I expected a positive work environment for everyone. It didn't take long to change the culture.

A manager should keep his eyes and ears open at all times to ensure new employees are being trained properly and are encouraged to do well, to ensure the success of the department. If a new employee isn't progressing as expected, the manager needs to find out exactly why and address the problem, whether it is the trainer or the trainee.

Answer 2

After doing things for awhile it becomes second nature to people, and sometimes they have a hard time understanding, or better yet remembering what it was like starting out. Second part is because they do not yet know you, you are in fact being tested to see if you can be trusted, take a little ribbing without getting out of the box. My suggestion add a little humor, when they say your a slow worker come back with yes but I am consistent, then smile.

Answer 3

For a number of reasons. People may be "forced" to train others when they don't want to or they already have too much to do with other things, and therefore are not happy campers about it. I think part of it is human nature, people feel threatened. Everyone needs their job and are a little bit threatened every time a new face appears. And don't forget us girls are always looking for a reason to dislike each other, it seems.

Answer 4

As stated by a previous poster, you work in the wrong place. I've never seen that response in over thirty years in the work force. If one of my employees treated a new employee like that, I'd be looking for another new employee as a replacement.

Addendum: No, we don't know "it's a big problem in companies today".

Answer 5

With some adventure with this, permit me permit you be responsive to the appropriate element you're able to do the two for your self, to your team and for the business company is to create a paper path of conversations with regard to the concern handy. Your technique is to very only initiate a communication with the worker that there are some problems with innovations-set and furnish useful feed back and an open door coverage (your door is often open if he or she needs to chat). checklist that assembly. If problems persist and additionally you spot that worker has no longer made any significant progression in innovations-set, then have yet another own assembly with the guy. latest some innovations yet enable them to be responsive to a metamorphosis could be made. save it inner maximum and private. checklist this assembly. If this back persists, I even have got here upon that it relatively is useful to latest an determination for that particular to take some day off. (the quantity relies upon on you of course). this could shake up the guy that his pastime must be in jepordy - without you asserting it. If there continues to be a concern, then you definately could be very forward and latest an ultimatum that the innovations-set could replace or you will permit that particular flow. in spite of if it frequently not at all gets so a tactics through steps you have taken earlier.

Answer 6

You are working in the wrong place.

Answer 7

Idk, I wondered that too sometimes. Maybe its cuz the ppl that have worked there longer worry that the newbie might be some serious competition for them it they get trained properly so they try to down the newbie's confidence by talking smack to them...Just my guess.

Answer 8

Look for solutions within yourself. Stephen Covey has helped me in such situations.

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People and search for "First Habit - Be Pro-active"