Don’t leave juniors alone
Junior team members should never be left alone.
In this article, I’ll share my thoughts about why junior team members need to be well accompanied, for a sufficiently long period of time.
History repeats itself
I’ve witnessed this mistake time and time again in my career. Some junior, fresh out of school joins the organization, gets some attention during the first few weeks, then gets “abandoned” on a legacy project or maintenance work. Of course, silent disaster ensues.
This mistake is made for many different reasons (mostly bad ones) or simply because of a lack of attention. So what’s wrong with this situation?
Productivity killer
The gap between school (i.e., theory) and work (i.e., practice) is colossal. Juniors that have just left school to join the workforce have tons to learn from their peers.
If you leave juniors alone in a corner, then you’re keeping them from learning the processes and the skills that they need to become productive members of the organization.
Juniors need to be accompanied 80% of the time for at least the first few months. Without that, they’re just wasting their time and your organization’s money.
