What’s The Key To An Effective Probation Process?| Tips To Build An Effective Probation Framework

Usually, most of the employees have faced adverse effects of this so called benefit i.e the companies fire the employees within probation period without giving any valid reason.

To avoid these loopholes, the law states to give notice while terminating employee in probation period as well and they are also liable to give valid reason before proceeding with any such step.

Here, we are going to have an insight on how the company can and should use probation period, so that they can benefit both the organisation and the employee.

1. Transparent and Clear Expectations : It is the right of every employee to have clear and transparent expectations set on the first day of the work itself. The company must have all the terms and conditions of employment and associated things like probation completion given to the employees in written on first day of the joining, and the employee is also responsible to read and understand everything and then only give the acknowledgement.

Also, the employees must be given in writing the expectations they are required to fulfill in order to complete the probation period successfully on time, and also the consequences if they fail to do so.

This is not a legal process, but a mandatory rule that every company should follow, because when you are going to have the review meeting with that employee, it would be easy to give feedback if you have things documented.

2. Regular and Appropriate Feedback : Now, once you have documented everything as stated above, it is of no use if the employee is not able to get in between feedbacks. Thus, it is also very important to conduct short feedback meetings in between the final decision meeting, and discuss about the achievements, failures and improvement areas.

This will help the employee to work on them before the final decision is taken for him/her.

Make sure you plan these meeting in advance and in fix interval, for example if you have 3 months of probation period, you can have 2 meetings in 30 days gap or 4 meetings with 15 days gap, depending upon the criticality of the role.

3. Final Decision : After the completion of probation period, it is the company is left to choose and one of the below mentioned decision they can take against the hired employee.

This decision criteria should depend upon the steps followed as stated above and matching those criteria with the actual performance of the employee.

The options are :

• Confirm the new employee

This can happen if the employee has met all the stated criteria mentioned by the employer to match the role for which he/she is hired.

The HR is responsible to conduct a meeting along with the reporting manager to discuss about all the achievements and improvement areas and updated the employee about the new terms and conditions applicable for a confirmed employee.

• Extend the probation period

This is applicable in case the new employee is unable to meet all the the stated criteria and the employer is still unsure to give final confirmation.

After all there is no harm to give another chance, if you see a scope of improvement.

The HR is responsible to conduct a meeting along with the reporting manager to discuss about all failures and improvement areas, along with the time set for this extension.

It is obvious that this step can lead to frustration and dissatisfaction in the employee, so you have to be ready with proper explanation and data to give valid reason of giving this extension, also you have to be careful with the conversation to make it a positive one.

• End up the process

This can happen if the employee is too casual towards the set expectations and the employer is not at all satisfied, can’t even see any scope of improvements.

This is one of the most sensitive discussion you need to have wit ha new hire, as it can lead to negative results if not handled properly.

So, if you decide to take this decision, you have to be very clear with strong reasons to fail the new hire within his/her probation period.

It is against the law, in case you are found failing any employee without any valid reason within probation period.

Now here are some Tips for successfully using probationary periods

If your company determines that having a new employee probationary period is its best option, it’s important to have a clear probationary agreement and set policies in place. Here’s a list of best practices for building probation period policies for new hires.

1. Consult legal experts

When drafting a probationary period policy, it’s crucial that you start by consulting with your legal team or outside counsel. This step ensures you understand any legal limitations of a probationary policy as well as what, if any, legal responsibilities the company has.

2. Maintain consistency

Consistent implementation of any workplace probationary period is extremely important. Not only can inconsistent policies cause division among your workers, but they can also cause legal issues. If employees make accusations of unfair treatment, it could damage your company’s reputation or entice one or more employees to seek legal action.

3. Make employee training a key element

Any probationary period should include a robust onboarding process that includes strategic training and ongoing support for new hires.

4. Offer frequent feedback

Frequent feedback is a critical component of any successful employee probationary period. New hires should understand what they’re doing right and have the opportunity to correct any negative feedback. Be sure to schedule regular feedback at least once a week to keep new hires updated on how they’re doing and how they can improve.

5. Act before the period ends

The primary goal of an employee probationary period is to determine if the new hire is a good fit for the company and the role. The last thing you want to do is allow the probationary period to end without addressing issues. This is the time to take action, such as extending the probationary period, switching the new hire to a new role or department or, if necessary, terminating employment.

How to conduct the final review meeting?

Probation review meeting is conducted once the hired employee completes the defined probation duration (as explained in part 1 i.e. the previous video.

The purpose of this meeting is to assess and define, how the employee has performed within the probation period, and vise-versa it gives time to the employee as well to decide about his/her new job and the role.

In this meeting, you will communicate to the employee if he/she has cleared the defined expectations during probation period or not, and what all improvements are required, and also to set the goals and path to work ahead in future.

In simple terms, Probation Review meeting is the first step of employment process.

any specific format for this meeting?

There is no hard rule to be followed for this review meeting. Every manager conducts this as per their own convenience.

Some managers prefer to go by format procedure first and then have the face to face discussion, whereas some prefer to have face to face discussion directly and cut off the formalities.

But, being an HR person I would always advise to go for the format procedure first so that you have things documented as per the procedure.

Although, it is always advised to plan the meeting in advance. This will help both the employee and the manager to prepare for the same.

Always remember to have this meeting as an open ended discussion from both the parties.

Questions to be asked from employee

Start With The Achievements

Many employees start with this meeting in a nervous state, so make sure to make them comfortable by starting with positivism and that can be done by highlighting their plus points or the achievements within their probation period.

• Improvement Areas

Asking about the roles where improvement is required, is the reverse way of asking above stated question.

But considering this to be an important question, make sure you as a manager is also ready with the support/help that the employee may ask for.

For every role requiring improvement, also requires your support and guidance.

• Future Goals

Another important question is to ask about the employee’s expectation from himself towards his own role for next 6 months or a year (depending upon the profile & role).

Don’t forget to set the review dates in regular intervals as per the defined goals.

• Concerns about the role

Last but the must required question is to be open to accept the opinion shared by employees in regards to their role, company, culture etc.

As mentioned above, probation period is the opportunity given to both the parties to decide on the employment. Thus, while having the review discussion it is also important to understand how comfortable the employee is towards his new job, work environment, culture etc.

Tips to conduct effective probation meeting

1. Conduct regular review meeting as per the defined time interval within the probation period. This will help the managers to understand and communicate the improvement areas, and also help the employee to overcome all the possible loopholes.
2. Always be prepared with your notes before starting the meeting i.e to be aware about the work and progress report of the employee between start and end date of the given task.
3. Probation is the best platform to provide constructive feedback to the employees, so that they can work on the weak points on time and able to prove themselves in this judgement period.
4. Managers should use the review meeting to analyse the issues if any like technical errors, reason behind the issues and the plan of action to overcome them.
5. Managers should always encourage the new employee to share his/her thoughts and feedback wherever required, because a new one might feel nervous or un-comfortable at certain situations, so always have open ended discussions in such meetings.
6. It is the manager’s responsibility to set right example for a new member i.e never expect everything to be done perfectly at the first step itself, give some time to adjust and then only set practical expectations.
7. Make sure to have the record of all the meetings conducted within the probation period i.e to record the tasks defined, outcome of the given task, support expected from employee and given by the manager etc. This record will help the managers to make a final decision on the completion of probation period.

Conclusion :

We’ll there was the concise overview of new employee probation process.

I hope I am able to explain the entire process in a simplified manner and this would help the HR students to get a brief understanding about the process and also new HRs can implement the same in their org. effectively.

Do watch this video and subscribe to the channel to get more details about such useful topics :