Monday, October 15, 2012

Job shock


One day while walking down the street a highly successful HR Director
was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven
where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself.
“Welcome to Heaven,” said St. Peter. “Before you get settled in though,
it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we’ve never once
had a Human Resources Director make it this far and we’re not really
sure what to do with you.”

“No problem, just let me in,” said the woman. “Well, I’d like to,”
replied St. Peter, “but I have higher orders. What we’re going to do is
let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose
whichever one you want to spend an eternity in.”


“Actually, I think I’ve made up my mind, I prefer to stay in Heaven,”
said the woman.

“Sorry, we have rules…” And with that St. Peter put the executive in
an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell. The doors opened and she
found herself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf
course. In the distance was a country club and standing in front of her
were all her friends - fellow executives that she had worked with and
they were all dressed in evening gowns and cheering for her. They ran up
and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times. They
played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club
where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner. She met the
Devil who was actually a really nice guy (kinda cute) and she had a
great time telling jokes and dancing. She was having such a good time
that before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody shook her hand
and waved good-bye as she got on the elevator. The elevator went
up-up-up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and she found St. Peter
waiting for her.

“Now it’s time to spend a day in heaven,” he said. So she spent the next
24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. She
had a great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were up and St.
Peter came and got her. “So, you’ve spent a day in hell and you’ve spent
a day in heaven. Now you must choose your eternity,” he said. The woman
paused for a second and then replied, “Well, I never thought I’d say
this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a
better time in Hell.” So St. Peter escorted her to the elevator and
again she went down-down-down back to Hell.

When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a
desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends
were dressed in rags and were picking up the garbage and putting it in
sacks. The Devil came up to her and put his arm around her.
“I don’t understand,” stammered the woman, “yesterday I was here and
there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we
danced and had a great time. Now all there is, is a wasteland of garbage
and all my friends look miserable.”

The Devil looked at her and smiled. “Yesterday we were recruiting you,
today you’re staff…”

It’s funny ‘cause it’s true, right?!

Maybe you’ve experienced that yourself, that awful feeling of starting a new job, wondering what happened to the one you applied for?

When we see organisations with high levels of turnover amongst new employees, it’s usually ‘job shock’: the reality isn’t what the candidates were sold.

We’ve done so much work in that space (hyperlink to new candidates research): we know that the misrepresentation of job roles would keep an army of Trade Practices lawyers well-fed for decades!

Is that affecting your business? Losing too many new recruits? Are you hearing that new employees are struggling with onboarding? Have you ever had to work at fixing misaligned expectations and how did you do it?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very funny, and sadly all too often true!