2.175 The First 90 Days: How to Manage Probation the Right Way

And one of the things that I find really interesting is that we spend a lot of time as business owners and leaders talking about recruitment, attracting the right people, writing better jobs, improving interviews, making good hiring decisions.

And that's all important because finding really good people isn't always easy.

And so sometimes we're just relieved when the recruitment process is over.

because finally someone has accepted the role and they sign the contract and the hard part's behind us.

But what actually happens is that that's what starts the most important stages of the employee journey.

Those first 90 days often determine whether someone is a confident, high-performing, engaged member of the team, or in six months later, everyone's wondering, why didn't that work out? And the latest ARRI, which is the Australian Human Resources Institute Work Outlook Report tells us that almost three in 10 organisations in Australia are still finding recruitment difficult.

So if you've invested weeks, sometimes months finding the right person, you really can't afford to just leave those first few months of employment to chance.

So that's why today I'm talking about probation, because it's not about just getting to the end of three months and deciding, you know, someone passed or failed.

it's really about giving someone every opportunity to succeed and become a long-term engaged team member.

So starting with in terms of what is a probation period, most of them are three to six months, although that should never be confused with an employee's workplace rights or the minimum employment period under the Fair Work Act, which is six months or 12 months, depending on if you meet the definition of a small business employer.

So although the time period is important to understand, one of the biggest misconceptions I come across is that probation is a date in the calendar.

Someone receives a reminder from HR or payroll that probation finishes next week.

The manager has a bit of a panic thinking over the last three or six months, have a meeting, complete a form, make a decision.

And if that's what probation looks like in your business, then it's probably time to start thinking about it a little differently.

Because by the time you're having that conversation, the most important part of probation has already happened, or maybe it hasn't happened at all.

Because probation shouldn't be about making a decision at the end.

It should be everything that happens along the way.

If someone reaches the end of their probation, they're surprised by the outcome, then something is wrong in the process.

I've spoken before about onboarding and If you listen to the podcasts regularly, you'll know that I'm a big believer that onboarding is a lot more than just showing someone where the kitchen is and giving them a login and a laptop on their first day.

But onboarding and probation aren't quite the same thing.

So if you think about onboarding as helping someone settle into the business, it's introducing them to the people, the systems, the culture, and giving them confidence to find their feet.

Whereas probation is about helping both the employee and the business understand, is this the right long-term fit? And sometimes we forget the employee is also assessing us as much as we're assessing them.

They're asking themselves questions like, is this what I expected? Do I enjoy working here? Do I trust my manager? Can I see myself building a career here? And the first 90 days aren't just about the employer making a decision, both sides are working out, is this going to be a successful relationship? So when I talk about success through probation, I'm not just talking about whether someone can technically do the job, but also about how are they working with the team? Are they living the values of the business? How do they respond to feedback? Do they show good judgment? Because those things are going to tell us just as much as their technical skills.

And we want to pay attention to early patterns, you know, not isolated incidents because everyone could have a bad day, but patterns.

Are they consistently late? Do they avoid feedback? Are they blaming others when things go wrong? Or are they learning? Are they adapting? Are they becoming confident? Because those are the sorts of things that can help us paint a much clearer picture.