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I was contacted out of the blue by an acquaintance of mine in December 2019, who thought I would be a perfect replacement for her position. I aced my interview and was hired in January 2020. She had recommended me and fought to get me hired, due to the fact that the position required a specific degree, which I was lacking. She told me she would be beside me training me, and had a verbal agreement with the plant manager that she would not be leaving to start her new position within the company until I was completely trained.

Unfortunately, she decided to leave before my start date. I was trained a total of 6 hours, mainly via email and phone calls, as she is now working from home. Since her promotion she has taken up to 24 hours to respond to a question, if she responds at all.

I am the only one in this role in the entire plant. No one but my predecessor knows this job. Is it unreasonable to expect the company to come up with a solution to get my manager and I trained? I have watched power point slides, asked questions and googled as much as I can, but our systems/processes are very company and plant specific.

I am afraid due to my lack of knowledge/productivity in my job, I may be let go. I have an excellent work ethic and have learned a few things on my own through trial and error, but have almost come to a standstill. My manager is very sympathetic to my plight, but has not got the knowledge to help me as he is a new hire as well. Thank you in advance for any advice.

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    I'm trying to understand how you can be on the job for 5 months, not get anything done, and nobody else in the business is complaining about a complete lack of delivery from your role. Is this really a needed function in this company?
    – Jay
    Jun 4 '20 at 14:29
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    Joe: My manager has tried to go up the chain of command to see if he and I both can get some assistance. Unfortunately, anyone that can help us on a corporate level has been let go due to Covid19.
    – Allena
    Jun 4 '20 at 14:35
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    Jay: I have been able to put together weekly reports and monthly reports for my manager. I have reached out to others in my role at other plants across the US, only to find that they struggle also, or have different processes in place. I was actually off from mid-March up until last week. My manager is extremely frustrated with my predecessors lack of training and has expressed this to the plant manager. They all know. I am responsible for all audits (BOS/IATF) and sensitive company documentation. I do not even have the most basic knowledge at this point to perform these job functions.
    – Allena
    Jun 4 '20 at 14:44
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    Is there a chance you can get into serious legal trouble by having certain responsibilities and not enough training to handle them? If yes, then you should probably consider resigning. It sounds like you've been set up for failure by the company that hired you.
    – Egor
    Jun 5 '20 at 2:23
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    What is this job about? Engineering? Finances? Legal? Maybe you can train yourself?
    – virolino
    Jun 5 '20 at 5:30
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I'm speaking as a shop steward. I've had to defend probationary employees. The employer always has the expectation to hire employees in good faith and we've been able to win when we've found evidence that the employee did not have a conducive training environment. That is the employer's responsibility to train employees. In the private sector, you can likely go to the labor board and claim UI if they try to fire you without showing that they trained you. They did not hire you in good faith if they failed to train you and they can't deny your UI claim if they try to terminate you.

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You write that

very specific guidelines and rules must be followed or we lose several certifications

Audit is a field in which documentation matters a lot. It's not so much about having certain processes, it's about proving that you have them.

So if I were you, I would ask the person that hold this position previously to share with you a link to all the documentation.

If you don't get it, apply for new jobs like crazy.

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