Told my probation will be extended but then terminated

[Nothavingfunrightnow]

I was called to a probation meeting and was told that HR would be there because my line manager had agreed to extend my probation. During the meeting line manager said she'd decided not to extend probation and was terminating instead.

That's a fucking crappy thing to do, isn't it??

Yes this

the line manager overstepped by thinking she could make the judgement call on your probation. In the time between email and meeting - she was told otherwise.

I think there’s maybe been an unfortunate typo in her email and she’s missed a “not” out. Did she say she’d changed her mind? She wouldn’t need HR there to extend it so why invite them?

It’s considered good practice not to extend a probationary period if the fundamental reason for considering doing so can’t be fixed with more time , for example if the role is just not and isn’t ever likely to be a good fit for your skill set.
It’s unfair to extend in these circumstances as no amount of time can fix this. I suspect this is the advice HR have given. I agree it’s not been handled well.

I agree, your manager has potentially been overruled but it’s legal. Sorry.

The 'extend' would have put you on notice that things were not going well. I would have thought it fairly obvious at that point that things were going to end at some point. It's shitty but I think they were trying to give you a few days warning before delivering the final blow.

Did anything happen in the2 days between confirmation of extension and then a decision to terminate? Late both days, over taking breaks, disastrous call with a client?

Your line manager missed the word not from her email.

I’m not saying you have a legal case here.

However for your own benefit in your next job, did you realise things weren’t going well or was this a surprise to you? Were you struggling with the work or with fitting in to the dynamic?

That's quite short sighted, a few years back I extended the probationary period for someone who seemed to have all of the right skills and attributes for my profession, it became very quickly apparent to me that he appeared to be dyslexic and that was impacting the written/report writing side of the role. No one had ever asked him about that before. I extended to allow for an OH assessment and for assistive tech to be implemented so he was on a level playing field. As I suspected with that in place he was fantastic and has subsequently been promoted several times.

This. And in fact the LM either got overruled or after discussing the upcoming meeting with HR, they reached the same conclusion. If it’s not a right fit and so probation needs extending…then actually it makes sense for everyone to cut their losses now.

Did they give you feedback before now that things weren’t progressing as expected? How did you feel things were going?

I’m sure you were a great manager and he worked like a trooper for you because you treated him so well.

it isn’t uncommon to extend probation’s if someone has been out sick eg broken leg or if they joined and then it was a really quite period eg Christmas followed by a travel ban so no events. good managers should be telling people at 4 months they might have an extension. In some jobs 4 months isn’t long to learn everything. Normally those meetings are easy but they are the minority.

after saying all that… I would say 3/4 extended probations end in termination. Critically employers can’t be bothered trying to get rid of someone who isn’t going to be great once they have full employment rights.

That's great :-)

Did the person not know they were dyslexic? Or had they just not declared it? Either way, an undiagnosed/undeclared disability is a fairly exceptional edge-case. I don't think it should take six months to figure out that someone might be dyslexic either!

Generally speaking, if someone isn't performing or is a bad fit in terms of team/company culture after six months, I struggle to see how a short extension will fix that.

I guess it depends how complex the job is and how much mandatory training there is before someone can commence the full job role. No he didn't know he was dyslexic it have been picked up in previous employment.