Terminated at the end of my probation now what?

[curieux]

I was recently terminated after my probation period because I was not a good fit for the unit. I came form a SNF prior to getting my foot in the door at a hospital. I did struggle in the beginning like any new nurse trying to get my footing. I had some wonderful feedback and some negative ones, but I know I needed to learn even though at times I was drowning. The manager and I were supposed to have weekly meeting to see my progression, but she did flake on me a few times ( I met her a total of 4 times). She goes on vacation and I find out the day before I was terminated I was going off orientation. That was a shock, but I did manage fine. The following day she calls me in for my 90 day review and tells me I am being terminated because I lack prioritizing and critical thinking, since the day of hire. I was shocked and stunned I had no words to say. During this entire time she never said anything to me and out of the blue in layman's terms I suck as a nurse and stick to what I know. The question I have is who is supposed to give me the feed back if I am doing something, my preceptors or manager? I would never work in that facility again, but I thought it was unfair she never mentioned anything negative to me until my final day. I guess they expected me to be an expert nurse by the end of my 12 weeks (I have only one year experience in a long term setting).

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I'm sorry this happened to you.

Generally, your preceptors will give you regular feedback and the manager only gets involved at certain intervals or if there is a major problem. It would be very unusual for our manager to meet weekly with every orientee. We have eight orientees right now, and that's a small group. At one point we had over 20. Even if the manager only met with everyone for 15 minutes every week, that's still five hours! The preceptor is the one who is working with you side by side, and who is in a position to see what you do well and what not so well. Ideally, they're giving you some kind of feedback daily, and have a meeting at regular intervals to discuss your progress in meeting your orientation goals. Some preceptors are very direct and you always know exactly where you stand with them. You might not like what they say or how they say it, but you know where you stand. Others are so uncomfortable giving negative feedback they sugar coat it to the point where it almost seems like POSITIVE feedback. It may be mistaken as positive feedback by some orientees.

Probation is a time period for the manager to determine whether the employee is a good fit for her unit, and if not to end the employment. Once someone is off probation, it's much harder to get rid of problem employees, so managers may be proactive about terminating someone they feel is not a good fit. I'm not sure I completely understand your post. The manager went on vacation, and THEN you found off first that you were off orientation and then that you were terminated? Who took you off of orientation? Who terminated you?

Take a few days to process what has happened. When you're ready, you're going to want to do some honest self-examination to determine what, if anything, you did to contribute to the bad outcome of your orientation. After you understand what went wrong, you can begin to work on how you're going to do it RIGHT next time.

Good luck -- I really hope you figure this out and come out the other side!