[easytiger]

Those all sound like armchair Aristotelian arguments to me. In my experience "this policy" or some varient thereof seeks to indicate a management failure and has sparked exoduses from profitable companies. Of course every business and every culture is different.

A business that seeks to rate people at failing at something there were at once determined capable and then later not needs to take a hard look at themselves. Perhaps the individual has mitigating personal issues; maybe the job hasn't grown with the person; maybe the company itself has changed and is less compelling as a person.

At least having given them 6 months of value to prove their worth and then changing your mind indicates something somewhere has changed.

Also what is this definite metric of performing you just invented? Either the individual is doing the job or when they slipped you didn't help put them back on track.

If it is a skilled job I can't imagine the cost of firing then rehiring and retraining someone to do the job in your company simply because you failed to pay attention to an employee at once every couple of weeks to see how they are getting on.

Nonsense, in short.

[throwaway0010]

The only nonsense here is your belief that a hiring process can accurately predict future results. Hiring is incredibly difficult: Vast volumes of literature have been written on the subject. Mistakes are common; your idea that business ought not correct for mistakes is pure fantasy.