The actual best method I think is a 3 month probationary period My workplace has a six month probationary period; I brought in a mandatory three month review a

The actual best method I think is a 3 month probationary period My workplace has a six month probationary period; I brought in a mandatory three month review after watching one group screw this up badly. At the end of the six months, the employee came in to work all happy as usual thinking everything was great, and was promptly fired. The three month review is the point at which the employee is told that they're on track, or they're below standard. If on track, just keep going the same way and if they don't get taken aside for a specific chat in the following three months, told to assume that they're going to pass the probation period; we have definitely turned probation failures into probation successes via this mid-point review. It's also their opportunity to tell the company what the company is doing wrong; what the company is doing that will make them choose not to stay. This too has happened, and we have retained good employees by listening to them at the three month point and making changes. If they're below standard, they're told what they need to improve and are offered help to improve, or they can just sack it now and walk (or, as happened once and once only so far, they're considered unrecoverable and we take a long hard look at how that person was hired). The principle we subscribe to is that if the employee is surprised by the results of their probation period, that employee's team lead and by association "the company" has really screwed up. If an employee doesn't know how they're doing after six months on the job, something has gone very wrong.