Most jobs give new employees ninety day probation. This is supposed to be the time they decide if it is working out for both parties. Once you make it off probation you are hired. The idea is that short of stealing or punching out the boss, you won't be fired. The company is invested in you and you are home free, in a manner of speaking.
In the long run probation doesn't mean squat. Employers will put a person back on probation after years of employment. I've seen it happen. They use reasons like, declining job performance. Not that it has happened to me you see, but I've witnessed others being demoted to this anxiety ridden status.(An employer threatened to put me back on probation once, after I complained about being pulled everyday to other locations.)
Any employee (or associates as they are sometimes called) can be fired at any time for any reason (trumped up or real). Blocking unemployment is harder for employers, but they still try. Why? I do not know, they usually loose on appeal.
Some places have about five levels of probation that you are required to endure. It’s seems to be more about the company stalling your benefits. Most new employees make it off probation barring extreme cases of repeated tardiness. The employer hired you because they needed the help and they don’t relish the process of searching for and screening new hires.
Let’s face it, they will keep you for as long as they like you, and you will stay for as long as you like them.
| Posted by: Tony | January 30, 2005 08:15 AM |
It may be different in the US but probation is used as an instrument to diminish legal entitlement for the employee. It is easier to dismiss an employee on probation as, by its nature, the legal status of the probationary employee is, at best, provisional. The avenues to seek legal redress – employment tribunals, civil action for wrongful dismissal etc, are much more limited. It’s a control mechanism pure and simple. |
| Posted by: dave | February 3, 2005 08:32 AM |
Your website rocks and you are hot. I only wish I lived in the U.S, like my brother, and I could meet you. |