[phphphphp]

England’s employment rights are much less beneficial to employees now than they once were: nowadays, in your first 2 years, you have no meaningful protection beyond what’s contracted, it’s not until 2 years that you have employment protection rights that prevent dismissal without cause — an employer must go through the redundancy process to dismiss an employee with more than 2 years service without cause.

If you’re at a company less than 2 years, your employment can be ended whenever, so probation doesn’t serve any meaningful legal purpose, it’s just an arbitrary structure a company can use to review employees and delay granting additional benefits. While you’re on probation, you’re still a true full time employee.

(Employment tribunals adjudicate whether dismissal is fair, and dismissal for protected characteristics is never fair, regardless of length of service - e.g: you can’t fire someone because of their religion)

[ilickpoolalgae]

Thanks for the that insight. When I was working with folks in the LON office they were often stressed about the probationary period and relieved once it was over. It sounds like they were potentially misinformed about the process.

[phphphphp]

Many people do find probation stressful because of the perception that they’re being scrutinised: although there’s no difference in the legal rights at 5 months vs. 7 months service, an employee on probation may perceive probation as being a process that is being used to find a reason to fire them. I’ve only heard of one person “failing probation” through my career and they would have been terminated whether the company used probation or not.

Personally, I would never implement probation in my company because it is a stressful process for employees that provides zero value to employers (unless they want to stress out their employees).

[gpderetta]

Normally the only difference is contractual: during probation usually the notice period is much shorter (the legal minimum). That's about it.

[ddek]

Available sick leave is usually shorter, too. Normally 5 days, converted to 10-15 after probation. Usually annual leave is fully made available from the start, though.

[gpderetta]

Hum, never had contractual sick leave in the uk. Normally whe you are sick, you just call in sick.

[alias_neo]

This. 2 weeks (or whatever the legal minimum is) during probation, and 6 months at senior/management level in my org.

[lozenge]

Probation is more symbolic these days. 6 months is also the length of time you need to hold a job to get a mortgage or sponsor a partner's visa.