failing probation period

[Gonnagetgoing]

I'm in a job on a contract for a year as a PA - started last July, working for a charity/research place. First time I've worked in this area, most people I work with are uni lecturers/research people. Since a month after I started there have been issues with 2 people I worked with (1 I worked with fairly well until last November) and their work has been transferred to other PAs. I have never had an issue with the other 2 people I work with and one was actually assigned to me last autumn because she needed extra help with her work.

I now have a probation meeting coming up this week where it's been stated that I may not pass and they may terminate my contract if so.

I'm petrified and worried they are going to blame me for what's gone wrong with the first 2 people I worked with (seems that way from a word document they sent me).

Any training has just been 'look at the training videos, work it out for yourself' whereas in my previous role where I trained a new incoming PA/Team Assistant I spent time on Zoom/share screen to ensure she could do anything complex, myself, as I think it's important colleagues are trained well.

I also feel many of the other PAs there (we are a team of 7 PAs but there's going to be another PA/Team Sec role created this month), there are a couple who are ok but one person (who is the boss of the PAs but is an EA herself) is ok day to day but whenever she's spoken to me about my work it's always been critical.

I've worked all my life in various PA positions, for 10 years as a legal sec/legal PA.

Does anyone have any advice for my probation meeting?

Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear this. The sad fact is that (aside from a limited number of reasons mainly connected with discrimination on the grounds of protected characteristics e.g. pregnancy, race) you have very limited employment protections in the first 2 years of your employment (assuming you are in England/Wales of course, in Scotland/N. Ireland it may be different), and basically your employer can simply decide to let you go (so long as they pay your notice period) with very little grounds or robust process. So unfortunately if you do think there may be individuals that have issues with you/your performance or simply they don't like you, whether or not that's fair/true you might have limited options

However many (I'd go so far as to say most) employers do want to be fair and give people a chance to improve (for the sake of their reputation if nothing else) rather than just sacking them off hand , even if the law allows them to do so. I'd say although the fact they've called you to a meeting and warned you you might fail probation, on the face of it doesn't sound good, it does indicate they are following some kind of procedure. Have they said you can be accompanied by a colleague or trade union rep, if so I would definitely do this, if you're not already in a union it's probably too late to join now but do see if you can ask a colleague to come and be with you, take notes etc as you will then be able to focus better on the meeting itself. I know it's really hard but try and go with an open mind and a willingness to listen to their feedback and improve - yes of course if some things that have been said are simply untrue then correct them but they are unlikely to want to get into a trying to decide in a 'he said she said' situation and if there's a longstanding trustworthy employee saying there are XYZ problems with you they probably will believe that person over you even if you know s/he's a total bitch/liar. Hopefully they will give you or help you draw up an action plan with specific points they want you to improve on and objective measures to show whether you've succeeded. If you have had positive feedback from some colleagues/some success stories to tell make sure you bring those in too so they know you do have strengths.

Wrt to training, I mainly know the public sector but I expect charities to be the same, usually it is possible to have training like you are describing but you have to be a bit more proactive in seeking it out, it is common that unless you are a bit pushy about what you need training in you will just be left to it - so if there are specific tasks you need to shadow a colleague while doing or things you need more guidance on now is the time to say, and generally you can arrange this yourself by talking to the relevant colleague rather than needing a manager or supervisor to sort it out for you... If worst comes to the worst and it does look as though you will fail your probation (and hopefully it's not at that stage yet), try and negotiate gardening leave or pay in lieu of notice to give you time to focus on looking for another job and see if they will give you an agreed 'neutral' reference that doesn't mention the issues in your probation period, they don't have to do either of these things but they are commonly agreed just to smooth the path of someone that needs to leave and to preserve everyone's dignity as much as possible...

Is your probationary period 6 months and is this your first meeting?

Can you elaborate on what the issues with the two people were?

Are you working at a University?

As the contract is fixed term for a year I can’t see the value of a six month probationary period. It’s meaningless anyway as you have no rights to a fair dismissal procedure where until you have worked somewhere for over two years.

I would check your contract immediately. If (worst case) you are dismissed at this meeting they will have to pay you notice pay (is this one month?) and for untaken leave. Ensure you receive your contractual entitlement.

In any event it’s time to look for another job ASAP. As an experienced PA you should walk into another job.

All the best OP. Hold your head up high. It’s not you, it’s them. Sadly it’s not possible to be a perfect fit for every role.

@LittleMissTake

As the contract is fixed term for a year I can’t see the value of a six month probationary period. It’s meaningless anyway as you have no rights to a fair dismissal procedure where until you have worked somewhere for over two years.

I would check your contract immediately. If (worst case) you are dismissed at this meeting they will have to pay you notice pay (is this one month?) and for untaken leave. Ensure you receive your contractual entitlement.

In any event it’s time to look for another job ASAP. As an experienced PA you should walk into another job.

All the best OP. Hold your head up high. It’s not you, it’s them. Sadly it’s not possible to be a perfect fit for every role.

I had my probation meeting yesterday. I agree, I can't see the value of a six months probation period either! They're letting me know the outcome of my probation meeting probably next week.

It's interesting I spoke to one of the other PA's who came into the meeting with me for support and she was lovely. She'd also had issues re working with another member of staff I'd had issues with too and we also agreed that coffee catch ups (where you can let off steam) were a really good idea and also to share knowledge. This has slipped in our company.

The thing which really pissed me off was - one PA has left this month and they're creating another perm PA role. The EA who is in charge of managing all the PAs was trying to make me feel guilty by saying she and another PA had taken on 2 of the Directors work in the interim period before employing someone new and she'd wanted to ask me to help out but didn't feel she could... I thought - I've been here 6 months - with little or no training! There is no way I'd generally ask someone to take on more responsibilities after only 6 months unless they had done exceptionally well in their role up until then. In my last PA role I trained the other PA who worked with me over approx 3 weeks in all the systems (submitting complex HR forms/docs etc) - as I'd been trained as I know how valuable that is! Even now that last PA is so pleased I trained her and we're friends and have met up! We also (me, the other PA and another senior PA) had regular coffee catch up meetings (even just for 30 minutes) which really helped us (as well as Teams and email chit chat) to gel as team members. Have had none of this in my current company.

I applied for another role this month and am waiting to see if I get called for interview but also I heard from a recruiter today saying they have lots of work so I'm really pleased.

I know it's not me and it's them and re the perfect fit not possible every time!

@steelrose

Is your probationary period 6 months and is this your first meeting?

Can you elaborate on what the issues with the two people were?

Are you working at a University?

@steelrose - yes my probationary period is 6 months and it is my first meeting.

I've had chats with the EA in charge of the PAs before where she said in this meeting it was feedback but it felt more like criticism. Hardly anything positive was said, mostly negative. To me it's mostly teething troubles in first month like making small mistakes in setting up meetings which I don't do now. There was also a clash with me and another Director because he'd say he wanted things done one way and then change his mind, a lot and was also very picky, down to the smallest detail. The first person I worked with, she had a constantly changing diary but was very hard to work with, changed her mind a lot and worked abroad then. I since found out that another colleague of mine had issues working with her so it's not just me!

I'm not working at a university but am working with academics with colleagues who do work some of the time at universities.

@maxelly

Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear this. The sad fact is that (aside from a limited number of reasons mainly connected with discrimination on the grounds of protected characteristics e.g. pregnancy, race) you have very limited employment protections in the first 2 years of your employment (assuming you are in England/Wales of course, in Scotland/N. Ireland it may be different), and basically your employer can simply decide to let you go (so long as they pay your notice period) with very little grounds or robust process. So unfortunately if you do think there may be individuals that have issues with you/your performance or simply they don't like you, whether or not that's fair/true you might have limited options

However many (I'd go so far as to say most) employers do want to be fair and give people a chance to improve (for the sake of their reputation if nothing else) rather than just sacking them off hand , even if the law allows them to do so. I'd say although the fact they've called you to a meeting and warned you you might fail probation, on the face of it doesn't sound good, it does indicate they are following some kind of procedure. Have they said you can be accompanied by a colleague or trade union rep, if so I would definitely do this, if you're not already in a union it's probably too late to join now but do see if you can ask a colleague to come and be with you, take notes etc as you will then be able to focus better on the meeting itself. I know it's really hard but try and go with an open mind and a willingness to listen to their feedback and improve - yes of course if some things that have been said are simply untrue then correct them but they are unlikely to want to get into a trying to decide in a 'he said she said' situation and if there's a longstanding trustworthy employee saying there are XYZ problems with you they probably will believe that person over you even if you know s/he's a total bitch/liar. Hopefully they will give you or help you draw up an action plan with specific points they want you to improve on and objective measures to show whether you've succeeded. If you have had positive feedback from some colleagues/some success stories to tell make sure you bring those in too so they know you do have strengths.

Wrt to training, I mainly know the public sector but I expect charities to be the same, usually it is possible to have training like you are describing but you have to be a bit more proactive in seeking it out, it is common that unless you are a bit pushy about what you need training in you will just be left to it - so if there are specific tasks you need to shadow a colleague while doing or things you need more guidance on now is the time to say, and generally you can arrange this yourself by talking to the relevant colleague rather than needing a manager or supervisor to sort it out for you... If worst comes to the worst and it does look as though you will fail your probation (and hopefully it's not at that stage yet), try and negotiate gardening leave or pay in lieu of notice to give you time to focus on looking for another job and see if they will give you an agreed 'neutral' reference that doesn't mention the issues in your probation period, they don't have to do either of these things but they are commonly agreed just to smooth the path of someone that needs to leave and to preserve everyone's dignity as much as possible...

@maxelly - I typed out a lovely long reply to this.

I actually disagree with you re public sector - in my last public sector role I got training 1-1 on various systems as we had to have this - e.g. on a case management system, you couldn't just pick this up. Re other departments - yes you were expected to know, e.g. Outlook, travel & meetings bookings systems and this was fine. Anything else I did learn myself. The thing is with this role I couldn't even shadow a colleague - not an option!

The one thing I'm hoping for here is that they're not nasty or bitter when it comes to a reference, potentially I can call on my legal background here. I've only been here 6 months after all!

I had the meeting yesterday - a colleague came along, I did take notes and have tried to take these on board so I improve.

Unfortunately I've realised that this area of work I find very boring, so I'll be looking to leave as soon as I can. I could quite easily, if I like, bring myself up to scratch and prove everyone wrong but to be honest I don't want to do that.

The EA in charge of the PAs was as fair as she could be in the meeting yesterday but I found myself being defensive at times and even disliking and not respecting her and that's not the way to go, looking forward. I took a lot of her points on board though.

So what I'll do is maybe update here next week. Best outcome is if I pass the probation period or it's extended. Worse case scenario, I'm let go. Hey ho.

Thanks to everyone who responded before.

So my probation period was extended to the end of this month which is great and as far as I know I've been doing well.

However, I've been a bit anxious about failing it which I think makes me doubt myself. And then makes me procrastinate and put off doing work...

One issue is something which I've been asked to do but haven't put into place as no training and only recently put this into place and I think it is working well (to do with tasks/planning etc). Had good talk about this yesterday and boss wants more seen here.

But my final appraisal talk (with head of PAs who herself is an EA who manages them) is next Monday.

I feel that as I have had 1:1's with my boss re above task it's not been easy for me to gauge what he wants and then put it into place. It is much clearer now.

Should I see if I can get appraisal period extended again or maybe no need for this?

Yesterday I did cover last minute in morning for another PA who's off sick (took most of morning) which I think went well.