Probation Dilemma--Help!!
HRQuest
7 Posts
Recently our HR shop has been debating how we want to apply a probationary period going forward for our new hires. Today we apply a 90 day probationary period across the board for all new hires, exempt and non-exempt. Since our it takes longer than 90 days in many cases to evaluate the proficiency of our exempt professional hires, we are thinking about extending the probationary period from 90 to 120 or more for exempts and leaving non-exempts at 90 days.
Does anybody have any experience with differing probationary periods for exempt and non-exempt employees, and if so how is it working? I'd also be interested in just knowing how long your probationary periods are.
Does anybody have any experience with differing probationary periods for exempt and non-exempt employees, and if so how is it working? I'd also be interested in just knowing how long your probationary periods are.
Comments
Sobek
In October of last year, we changed policy back to three months. If we are still unsure after three months if an employee will make it or not, our policy allows for a thirty day extension. That's it. You then have to make the call.
If anyone would like to see how we did this please email me and I'll be happy to send you a copy.
Our benefits start with day 1.
Zanne
We use "initial employment period" and I noticed some of you use "orientation" period as well to avoid the "probation" of good employees You might want to think about changing your terminology.
April
>period was a thing of the past becuase of the negative connotation
>with the word "probation". (Avoiding jail time comes to mind)
In the employment context, probation is not necessarily 'a thing of the past'. It may, however, be a consideration among politically correct thinkers, of which I am not one. Probation, in terms of an initial employment period, according to Webster's, comes way before 'convicted offender probation'. It's preferred meanings are defined as 'critical evaluation and examination', 'a period of testing and trial to ascertain fitness for a job', and even 'a newly admitted student nurse whose fitness is being tested during a trial period'.
The problem I DO have with using the term probation or trial period or initial period or any of the other magic words is that all of them seem to suggest that some right to the job will exist once the employee passes through the mystical period. I have the same problem with the word 'permanent'. Talk about connotations!
>the past'. It may, however, be a consideration among politically
>correct thinkers, of which I am not one. Probation, in terms of an
>initial employment period, according to Webster's, comes way before
>'convicted offender probation'. It's preferred meanings are defined as
>'critical evaluation and examination', 'a period of testing and trial
>to ascertain fitness for a job', and even 'a newly admitted student
>nurse whose fitness is being tested during a trial period'.
>
Whoa! Hold it there Don! Put the dictionary down and nobody will get hurt!
As wonderful as dictionary definitions can be, I still believe "probationary period" should be deleted from employee manuals everywhere. I like to think that I am not on the politically correct band-wagon, I take all that with a grain of salt, but I am concernd with employee morale and I believe that there are certain things that aren't as obvious to everyone that may be negatively impacting the work culture. It's important that we take care of our employees, even if it means changing one word in the employee manual. Most people don't even know that it is affecting them. Im not sure if you are playing the devils advocate or not here, but I know there is someone out there that agrees with me. right? :-S
April
If you have a 90-day orientation period, how do you terminate someone for performance at day 10? Or day 89? You've already announced that it takes 90 days to learn the job.
Again, it comes down to this - what have you gained by having a 90-day orientation period, or 90-day probationary period?
Maybe I am reading your post wrong, but in no way did I intend to offend anyone with my opinion on the term "probationary". It's definately not going to infect your employees with any diseases, just something to think about. I guess I need to get these emoticons down so that my easy going personality is more apparent in my posts!
Always with good intentions (Trust me, I know where that leads),
April
x:-8
Our exempt employees are reviewed after 6 months. If they do not meet expectations they are let go as soon as that has been decided.
I do have a question though, how much time is used in doing 30 day (or 60 day, or 90 day) evals on all the new hires, and what is the return on that investment?
Another question is, are hiring errors made so frequently that you need to have the waiting period for benefits?
Just a couple thoughts......:-?
A new hire gets benefits the first of the month after hire. There is no waiting period.
I'll wade in there also. Our 30, 60, and 90 day evals are a shorter version of the annual evals. I suspect some of our management spends 5 minutes on them - others (being the type of personality that they are) probably spend 2 days on them. We think it's a good way to formalize feedback during the orientation (I'm with you AprilShowers!) period so that if termination comes at 90 days - it shouldn't be a surprise.
Please note that I said "shouldn't". We recently termed an employee after only 7 days of work because she showed up late for 6 days and returned late from lunch for all 7 days. We felt that any amount of "formalizing feedback" wouldn't help in this matter! Anyway - she was totally astonished about the whole thing.
Our benefits start day one. Where I used to work - our 90 day turnover rate was about 55% so - it made sense not to start benefits until 90 days were up. Otherwise it was putting people on insurance one month to term them the next. Here, our 90 turnover rate (prior to Ms. Late) is about 1%.
Zanne
It sure is keeping my benefits specialist busy, when you consider all the other new hires in that time frame who have made it (so far!) and the other terms in that time frame (85).
Whew - guess I don't have to ask her what she's doing with her time.
The interaction with supervisors and ees is (usually) a good thing, perhaps its an issue of perspective. Is the probationary process in place to enhance the relationship between ee and er or to provide an opportunity to remove an ee who's not a good fit. Using the example from Zanne, logically, the ee would have been terminated no matter how long she'd been there, based on her attendance record. Do we start the relationship believing its going to work or do we believe its going to fail?
Just sharing some thoughts.....
Thinking that it will fail from the get-go is counter-productive. If that's the way you feel about an applicant, are you hiring him/her to prove you were right about the person failing or because you needed a warm body?
We call it an Introductory Period because of the negative connotations of "probation".