How to make a 90 Day trial period work

As a small business owner, making the wrong call when hiring someone can have a big impact on your business.  You can lose productivity, disrupt your team and even damage your reputation with your customers! This is where a solid 90 trial period clause in your employment agreement can help. 
Sometimes a new hire won’t do anything that will warrant instant dismissal rather they will simply not meet your performance expectations.  Rather than starting a lengthy performance management process or risking a personal grievance by letting them go without a process, a 90 day trial clause allows you 3 months to assess their performance in the job and decide if you are happy!
 If you terminate someone under the 90 day trial period clause, they can’t raise a personal grievance for being fired. There are a few things you need to make sure about:

1. You must act within 90 days of their start date
2. They must know what your performance expectations are, this can be by providing them with a job description, meeting with them to explain or write to them.
3. They must be a new employee that is they can’t have worked for you or your company before.
4. They must have agreed to the trial period before they started work and it must be in their employment agreement.

If you want to make sure that your employment agreement wording is right and that you have a valid trial period clause, or if you need some help working through the process, call us today. 

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