Good employee resigned after probation extended

[simplel]

I am a manager in a team. We have a team of 100 staff and about 20 managers. We also have an HR team.

One of our employees joined 7 months ago. They had a bit of a patchy start but once they’d settled in they’ve been excellent. They are well liked in the team and always keen to get stuck in with team events.

At their mid probation, one manager took a dislike to them on a point which has since been disproven. But because this negative feedback was in their review at month 3, HR overruled all the other good feedback from managers and insisted we extend the employee’s probation to 9 months long.

I’m told by HR that the employee was devastated but promised to continue showing they could perform at the level needed.

A month later, employee has handed in their notice and is leaving for a competitor. We need the (wo)manpower in the team and I’m gutted they’ll be going. If you were this person, what could we do to make you stay?

There is nothing you could do to make me stay, poor management and weak HR is a dreadful combination.

You should call together HR and the management team to hold a retrospective to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Good for her. I doubt anything would make her stay. What a shitshow.

Extending probation usually sends a strong message to the employee that they probably aren't going to be kept on, so why wouldn't they look elsewhere. Extending probation for no reason other than someone's whim is appalling.

You could try apologising for being unprofessional spineless fools who seem to be in thrall to HR.

I am glad the employee had the self respect to jump ship.

This!
And the fact that the OP needs to be told this.

Nothing you could do, at this point. I wouldn't want to annoy the other company where I'd accepted a job offer for a company that doesn't appear to like or trust me. (The extended probation shows that.)

I love it when companies FAFO.

Nothing!

I'm glad they gave you the heave ho. Nothing good comes out of HR. Employers don't always get things their own way.

You cannot make them stay , the person was devastated at being treated poorly by that manager and then HR stuck their oar in . The only way that you could possibly make them stay is to offer an obscene amount of money , otherwise that ship has sailed . What should happen tho is the person should be offered an exit interview where they can state their reasons why they are leaving . There should be further action taken about that managers conduct if they think it’s acceptable to treat someone poorly just because they have taken a dislike to the employee .

Let them move and start treating your employees better.

If the point was disproven, why wasn’t her probation extension reversed??

@simplel why has the probation been extended if the problem has been proved to be false?

Of course the person won't stay.

HR should have had the false things removed from the record

also look how many problematic steps there are here

One is that a dodgy person took a dislike to them you say - that should be irrelevant, but I think maybe you phrased it badly

Two is that it got into their probation

Three that it got their probation extended

unless you've done a really shit job of explaining this, it looks like they've been badly treated by the person who criticise them in the first place, by extension their manager didn't handle it properly, and then HR seemed to have made it worse

What a shit show.

I had a horrible manager who made quite serious and entirely false accusations against me. It was completely hideous. I went to his boss and HR who did precisely nothing. I left and another colleague handed her notice in on the same day. Within 8 months the entire team had gone. People don’t want to work with arsehole managers and you can’t make them. Leave her alone and look for another job yourself.

why has the probation been extended if the problem has been proved to be false? and did the person making false allegations get disciplined in any way?

Nothing at all could convince me to stay if a proven false allegation remained on my record and resulted in my probation being extended when it was known to be incorrect.

Nothing would convince me that I was safe in my role given HR’s idiotic approach and nothing would convince me that I was protected from the lying manager either. Life’s too short for toxic workplaces.

Yes I'm afraid I think that as a company, you showed who you were, and she believed you. How could she trust the company again? What could you possibly say that other managers could be trusted to abide by? She's best off out of it.

I would too, it's easy to see that the former employee was unfairly targeted by the other manager, and effectively managed/bullied out.

Read the reverse thread yesterday. Maybe a coincidence…

This.

What did you do to overturn the information on their 3 month review between it being disproven and the mid year probation? If you've shown that you didn't mind this inaccurate information being in their 3 month review, and have only done something about them because you don't want to lose them, then you clearly aren't devasted and are a sloppy manager who doesn't care about work place mistakes. I wouldn't want to work for you either.

Nothing.

You'll be lucky if she doesn't leave and then take you for constructive dismissal, she's been treated appallingly.

Nothing, it’s too late now. Maybe you should look at jobs where she’s going?

The company I work for pulls this kind of shit on people and then wonders why they have a retention problem, I’d say it’s more than just the probation, it’s probably the culture too.

Other managers have often taken dislike to me, my manager has no backbone and talks the biggest waft of 💩 going. sat listening to it for nearly an hour, bless them they tried to continuously pass the buck to the poor trainer.

Reverse?

If someone extended my probation because some horrible manager had it in for me - I wouldn’t stay either - why on earth would you??? I don’t blame them at all and I’m not sure anything you do would make them stay. Have you asked them why they’re going and if they would stay?