Son's awful experience in first week of job

[ArmyofMunn]

Sorry this is long but I wanted to get it all down!

My 18DS started his first full time job last week. He has A Levels but is not degree educated and was taken on as one of four, the other three being in their mid-to late twenties and two of them with degrees. It was with a financial services company and paid £4K more per year plus commission than another job he’d also been offered, so he was very pleased.

He spent last week and the first two days of this week completing training for the job and he's been coming home each day saying how much he loves it - the training, the people, the office, the role etc. The training has been intense, involving two powerpoint presentations per day to prove he understood the training, but in which he said he kept coming second from top.

This week, following the training, he’s had to do three mock calls to a fake customer (his line manager) and he apparently made three ‘breaches’ in total, all involving not noticing that the customer had used some wrong letters during the security checks of emails and addresses etc. He thought he’d done well though as he was confident and affable and just thought next time he’d get the breaches right. He was shocked therefore to be taken into a room after his final call by two managers and told that because of the breaches he hasn’t passed his probation week and would have to leave and couldn’t appeal!

He’s completely shocked. The company didn’t tell him that his first week was probationary and he also remembers reading clearly that breaches by employees in their first month should not be regarded as breaches. He unfortunately read this on their own system so he can’t access it now, and his employer has his contract, so he can’t check that over either.

I just think this is an absolutely terrible way to treat an employee and my son is struggling to understand how the breaches he made were so serious as to warrant being asked to leave. He did ask to opt out of their employee life insurance and pension scheme, so I’m wondering if that just didn’t go down well with them!

Does anyone on here have experience of this type of thing? Are companies allowed to treat people like this these days?

It seems to me that after a period of 2 weeks training these mock phone calls were actually tests on what he presumably was supposed to have learnt during that training? Did he make notes during the training and study them before the assessment? He failed all (3) of the tests unfortunately.
So if the others all past these tests would the employer be willing to redo the training again for one individual while the rest of the group moved on? Maybe they do not have the staff to do that. Perhaps they think he is not suitable for the job?

I am sorry your son is disappointed. But he failed the assessment. I think all the company may have done wrong is not make it clear that he had to pass this before he got the job.

there is no point in going after the company - and it is important to understand what you want from them - an apology? Compensation? His job back.

Because you won’t get any of these I am afraid.

tough lesson though. I hope he is okay

I really think you need to stop involving yourself in your adult sons battles. Maybe this company paid more because they have higher standards, maybe they were weeding out, he was up against older graduates and that was never going to be easy.

He needs to have a real think about what he wants and even if he gets "any" job in the meantime, it will give him a grounding. It is, though, down to him, but I think he needs to let this go.

'Confident and affable' sounds perfect for a sales role.

jfc

which scenario should we do first?

customer: this is really important to me
him: ignores everything customer said . but look how cool this model is
customer: yes it's cool. but this is important to me
him: great. really happy you agree it's cool.

1 hour later
him to manager: oh customer said she didn't want to go with us because i wasn't listening to her needs

manager: make sure you remember to tell them it's non refundable
him: yep sure
him to customer; and it's really cool and does xyx
customer: oh that is cool i will buy it

10 days later
customer: this doesn't do what i want. i want a refund.
him: oh let me get my manager
manager: sorry we don't give refunds
customer: I wasn't told that

he NEEDS TO LEARN FROM THIS FIRST rather than thinking it's the mean company's fault

No - I want them to pay for the important mistakes only, like giving criminals access to my bank account. Stumbling and umming is fine - you can warm up, but no bloody way should someone with no eye for detail have a job requiring a good eye for detail - they can do a sales role that doesn’t require the same level of accuracy and data protection.

He can learn details like that though? He just doesn't seem to be able to check them against a record

This is horrible and given his good performance in earlier exercises seems unfair. I think he's had a lucky escape. Tell him to them out on Glassdoor and leave them an honest review. I work with a lot of graduates and always say they need help and support for at least 6 months before being exposed to real customers.

Yes, it sounds like it - OP said he was doing well on the powerpoint quizzes. He can learn and remember, if this is correct. His lack of skill seems to be in what was called 'clerical checking' in my day.

I think you are getting confused with a probationary period and training.
This sounds like training that he needed to pass to move into the next steps. That although it is during his probationary period he needed to pass it or fail.
It is likely the 3 breaches is after he’d passed and completed the training.
If that makes sense.
He was given 3 goes to pass his training and failed.
I’ve been in jobs like this.

I agree with this. Am also surprised that you're both surprised about probation

Three breaches in financial services at that stage of the game, yeh sounds about right.

That sector is not for loosey goosey errors, he's just not sharp and clinical enough.

The consistency of the mistakes (effectively always making the same mistake that, if made in real life in real life, could have dreadful consequences) indicates a serious lack of attention to detail and serious failure to comprehend the vital importance of the details - despite a week’s training presumably underlining the importance of those details. If different types of mistakes had been made each time, that would have indicated more training and practice was required, but making the same humongous error three times in a row indicates a different job that plays to your strengths but does not highlight your weaknesses would be vastly preferable.

I understand fully you’re on his side and can only go on what he says. But I’d read this that the breaches are serious enough they don’t wish to continue and he’s over confident on how capable he is, thinks he can make mistakes and it’s ok.

in my experience recruitment is time consuming and expensive, if they can train someone they will, so if they’ve cut so quickly then it’s catastrophic levels of bad performance,

but he’s not going to tell you that. Cmon, he’s not going to tell you. Potentially because he doesn’t even understand it himself. But I’d hope that isn’t the case. Because then he really is a problem. If he knows and is lying then it’s so so much Better.

Breaches are very serious and I'm not surprised he was let go if he didn't even realize it's serious and "thought he did well". Not the best fit of a job for someone who's a bit careless tbh

6 months?

All that's being asked is to have common sense, and not be careless. Are they all really that stupid?

I'm really quite shocked at some of the people on here.

Would you really be happy for someone who repeatedly passes people on security who are getting details wrong having management of your money? In an capacity? I mean, of course you're covered by the bank's policies and everything, but would you not expect someone who is failing to get some of the most basic concepts and policies wrong in their first week to be told they are not suited? Do you think businesses have unlimited money and time to recruit and train people that they can already see are unsuited and will struggle?

It's not 'mean'. And while it might be a shit employer - I genuinely don't think this is an indicator of that.

Yes - my friend works in a similar environment and said that new employees are shadowed for a long time.

I really don't think I have shown entitlement any where in this thread. Maybe you just haven't read it.

I have. 3 significant mistakes and you think your son is entitled to the job. That in this day and age employers should be forced to retain staff who aren’t competent. That’s a problem.

Matching letters during the security checks of emails and addresses etc. is a very simple task. Unless your ds has dyscalculia or dyslexia, there is no need to be a brainbox to get it right nor need shadowing for any period of time. He is just expected to be careful.

The reason why compliance jobs need shadowing for a long period of time (I am still spot checking my analysts' work after a year) is that there are lots of nitty gritty processes to remember and apply in different permutations and fact situations. Can you imagine if he had to remember 30 ever changing tasks and know which one to apply for which fact situation. At the start he was already getting one simple task wrong that was specifically pointed out to him and he got it wrong 3 x in a row and minimised it.

His trainer will see this as the tip of an iceberg. The trainer is not going to take him to the next 29 steps. No sirree. Life's too short.

there is an increasing tendency I see in your staff - to be honest particularly males - where they vastly over estimate their abilities. There is a cockiness, and a dismissive attitude to detail and process of experience. I am not saying this is your son - but he seems very blasé about making basic and avoidable mistakes and his assessment of his performance seems at odds with reality.

I also see a lot of helicopter parents. I had the mother of a 22 year ring to check if I would meet him at the front door in his first day!!!!!

a bit of a set back might do your son the world of good. He needs to learn from this - take training more seriously.

Young staff not your staff!

The thing he read stating that a breach made in the first month doesn't count is irrelevant - that clearly applies to an actual breach of real data in a real call with a real person.

His errors were made in mock calls during training so there was no actual breach. He hasn't been fired for a breach of data security, he's been fired because he: made a lot of mistakes/made the same mistake several times/ doesn't appear to have taken feedback on board/didn't understand the importance of data security.

You really haven’t