Is it a failure of training if employees are hired but quit soon after? The idea is that retention is determined at the entry stage.
Is it a failure of training if we can recruit but they quit soon after?
Here's a three-line summary of what you'll learn from this article.
Many cases of early employee turnover are not due to a failure in post-hire training, but rather to failing to address gaps that should have been filled during the selection process—the "entry point."
There is a discrepancy between the "reasons for wanting to quit" and the "reasons for actually quitting," and simply focusing on job satisfaction will not stop early resignations.
Three things managers and HR leaders can do starting today to design employee retention from the outset.
Have you ever heard this in a hiring review meeting? "We finally hired someone, but they quit again after only a few months." When you look for the cause, it often boils down to "poor onboarding by the team" or "the employee lacked perseverance." You revise the training plan, increase follow-up interviews, and yet the same thing happens again the following year. We have witnessed this vicious cycle many times.
Why does early resignation occur?
In conclusion, most early resignations are not due to inadequate training. They are the result of a gap that existed between the individual and the company before they joined, and which was left unaddressed.
According to a survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (regarding the job turnover rate of new graduates, targeting graduates in March 2021, published in October 2024), the turnover rate within three years of employment for new university graduates was 34.9%. Approximately one in three people leave their first company within three years. Some interpret this figure as indicating a lack of perseverance among today's young people. However, there is another piece of data that cannot be explained solely by this.
A survey by Recruit Management Solutions (targeting employees in their first to third year of employment, published in June 2026) found that 62.21% of respondents answered that they had thought about quitting. While the number one reason for wanting to quit was "not feeling fulfillment or meaning in the work" (21.81%), the number one reason for actually leaving was "poor working environment/conditions" (22.41%). In other words, the triggers for wanting to quit and the triggers for actually quitting are different things. Companies tend to invest only in measures to increase job satisfaction—training and providing meaning—while neglecting the gaps in working environment and autonomy that actually lead to employee turnover. If employee turnover doesn't stop even with extensive training and follow-up interviews, it may be because the focus is fundamentally misaligned.
Furthermore, when we overlay these two sets of data, a certain order becomes apparent. Dissatisfaction with "not feeling a sense of fulfillment" often shows signs even before joining the company. There was a discrepancy from the beginning between the significance of the work described in the job posting and interviews and the actual tasks assigned. This discrepancy was ignored, or perhaps the selection process was unaware, and an offer was extended, the candidate accepted, and they were allowed to join the company. Before demanding "measures to restore a sense of fulfillment" from the training stage, we first question whether there was a gap that should have been bridged at the entry point in the first place.
Are companies and organizations designing employee retention strategies from the very beginning?
In conclusion, employee retention isn't solely determined by efforts made after joining the company. It largely depends on how honestly and specifically the company communicates "what it means to work here" during the selection process.
We view recruitment not merely as a task for the HR department, but as a management activity in itself—finding colleagues who will shape the company's future. If you continue with a selection process that simply "fills the numbers" without working backward from the company's future, it's only natural that gaps will surface after employees join the company. In our consultations with HR companies, we repeatedly realize that even if you individually improve aspects of recruitment—such as changing recruitment platforms or improving the skills of interviewers—it won't lead to fundamental improvement unless it's based on working backward from the organizational vision three years from now.
That's why, even in our own hiring process, we value the principle of "if we're not even slightly confident, we won't hire them." We believe that compromising just to fill positions benefits no one—not the company, not the employees, and not the person being hired. It may sound extreme, but if we don't find someone we feel is "the one," we're even willing to hire zero people that year. This isn't just idealism; it's a standard we can adhere to because we know firsthand the enormous cost of losing employees early.
To be honest, we didn't have these standards from the beginning. We constantly hit roadblocks in recruitment and organizational development, and we gradually articulated them while learning from young people outside the company. There were years when we prioritized our number targets and hired people while suppressing our doubts. Each time, we paid the price in the form of mismatches after they joined the company. Standards are something that are articulated through failure, and there is probably no company that has a complete textbook from the start.
What kind of design process ensures that "only the right people remain," regardless of who is doing the selecting?
In conclusion, a selection process that only retains the right candidates involves defining competencies—actions and strengths that are valuable and lead to results within the company, defined by working backward from the company's future—in concrete terms, and honestly communicating them at every point of contact during the selection process.
First, the number of selection steps itself is meaningful. We do not consider having many selection steps to be inefficient. We provide multiple perspectives, such as executive interviews, conversations with employees on the ground, aptitude tests, and written exams, not so that the company can unilaterally select candidates, but so that candidates can also learn about the company's reality from multiple angles. A selection process that decides whether to hire or not based on a single interview and the impression of one interviewer may end quickly, but it becomes a gamble for both parties that "it wasn't what we expected."
Next, whether a candidate can imagine themselves working at a company isn't determined solely by the company's reputation or compensation. Rather, the daily interactions during the selection process—such as the speed of communication after the first interview and the timing of feedback after submitting assignments—are what candidates perceive as their work experience at the company after joining. Slow responses and unclear feedback are not minor operational errors; they are the very elements that allow candidates to imagine themselves working at the company. Instead of trying to sway candidates by only showing the good side, we design the selection process itself as a microcosm of what it would be like to work there. This is what we mean by "designing the entry point."
There's another often overlooked point: whether the selection process is being varied depending on the employment type. Many companies take their time to evaluate full-time employees, but rush to fill positions with part-timers, temporary workers, and interns. However, regardless of their role, the importance of welcoming them as colleagues should remain the same. Lowering the level of detail in the selection process based on employment type is essentially designing a scenario where employees in that position leave the company early.
Three actions you can start today
We will re-evaluate recent cases of early employee turnover into issues related to training and selection processes. Simply separating the questions into "Could this have been prevented if we had explained things more carefully?" and "Was the gap communicated during the selection process in the first place?" can change the target of your countermeasures.
Write down just three competencies as actions. Instead of simply describing someone as "proactive," we define them more concretely as "someone who tries to bridge the gap between their current position and their goal on their own, before waiting for instructions," and then translate that into an interview question.
During the selection process, we will disclose not only one positive aspect but also one challenging aspect. Adding just one piece of information that isn't overly polished—such as the realities of busy periods or experiences where things didn't go well—makes the selection process a microcosm of what it's like to actually work at the company.
In summary, is quitting a matter of the individual's perseverance?
When we reflect on the situation and think, "We finally got a good harvest, but then we gave up again," we first want to ask ourselves this question:Was the resignation a matter of the individual's lack of perseverance, or was it a problem with the design of the entry point, which allowed someone who wasn't a good fit to be allowed in?
Early employee turnover will recur no matter how much support is provided after hiring, unless the gap that needs to be addressed at the selection stage is closed. Our consistent belief is that hiring failures cannot be rectified through training alone. Lionheart uses the "techniques for concretizing ambiguous language" cultivated in the field of branding to help rebuild employee retention from the very beginning, from articulating competencies to designing the selection process. If you feel that you'd like to take a look together at how honestly your company's selection process conveys "what it's like to work here," please feel free to contact us.
Originally from Hokkaido, she gained experience as a designer and art director both as a company employee and freelancer before joining Lionheart as a designer in 2012. She took on art direction and departmental management responsibilities, and was appointed executive officer in 2016. Starting with recruitment, she ventured into the fields of human resources and management, expanding her expertise to organizational design, performance evaluation systems, and labor relations, and established the Strategic Human Resources Department.
He was appointed Managing Director in 2023. In 2025, based on the HR experience he had cultivated within his own company, he launched an HR business specializing in small and medium-sized enterprises that do not have an HR department. His belief is that "recruitment failures cannot be rectified through training," and he is working on recruitment and organizational development for his own company and the companies he supports.
Drawing on my experience as an employee who rose from the front lines to management, rather than as a founder, I translate management language into language that resonates with employees and job seekers. I examine the challenges between people and organizations in both my own company and the companies I support, and share the insights gained from practical experience.
