The first week at a new job is always stressful.  There are new rules, roles, expectations, and protocols that take time to learn and implement.  There are new co-workers to meet and establish working relationships with.  There is even sometimes new equipment to try to figure out (hello, trusty old printer that everyone in the office can seem to work but me!).

There is an unstated learning curve for every new hire.  Very few people can waltz into a job and do it without any training whatsoever.  Employers understand this and make allowances for it and eventually the new hire becomes proficient and life goes on.

What happens when a new hire just doesn’t seem to grasp the new job and fails?  Leadership IQ, a global leadership training and research company, conducted a study and found that a whopping 46% of new hires will fail within their first 18 months and only 19% will go on to achieve unequivocal success.

Over 5,000 hiring managers from over 500 companies were interviewed for the study.  Here are the top five reasons (by percentage of the hiring managers' responses) why new hires fail and some ways that you can make changes and increase your chances of succeeding as a new hire:

1. Coachability (26%): As a young Gen X or Gen Y employee, you’re probably used to a lot of encouragement and accolades.  In a professional setting, however, you’re going to have to get used to being wrong.  Everyone, from the top to the bottom of a company, is wrong from time to time.  To err is human, yes?  To accept corrections gracefully, however, that is success.  Even if the person who is coaching you is a jerk, use the experience to your advantage by asking yourself how you can use the information given to you to do your job better.
2. Emotional Intelligence (23%): Take the time to figure out how both you and your co-workers work.  Conflicts are typical at work but what will differentiate you is how you handle those conflicts.  Knowing yourself is only half the battle here.
3. Motivation (17%): Motivation is a huge factor in determining whether or not you’ll succeed at your new job and can be external or internal.  Use whichever method works best for you either by giving yourself a reward for working well (e.g. I will buy myself a new pair of shoes if I close this account) or by finding intrinsic value in what you’re doing (e.g. writing a daily to-do list just for the explicit pleasure of crossing off the items).  Sometimes nobody but you knows how to motivate you.  If your boss isn’t getting the job done do it yourself!
4. Temperament (15%): This one is pretty intuitive.  No one likes working with a grump.  If you improve your mood not only will you work better, others will work better with you.  No one is an island, especially not in a company.  Play nicely with your co-workers and they’ll play nicely with you.
5. Technical Competence (11%): Surprisingly, this is not the reason most new hires fail.  Interviewers screen for technical competency pretty well so this is not likely to be your downfall.  An easy way to make a good impression on your boss, however, is to learn new skills. Increasing your technical competency can definitely work in your favor.

By and large, what most of these boil down to is attitude.  If you come into work with a bad attitude you will likely not do well there.  You won’t work well and others won’t work well with you.  Attitude is not everything but if you’re good enough to get hired it’s likely to be one of the keys to your success.