Based on our recent experience having to fire a newly hired employee, it got me thinking…should we establish a probation program for all new hires?

The idea immediately resonated with me. Maybe because it was my idea;) Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an original idea, as a few companies out there do have formal probationary periods prior to hiring.

The program would be similar to what our friends at Buffer do with their Buffer Bootcamp:

• 45-day probationary period
• An established plan of what success means during at at the end of the probation period.
• Meet with a senior team member (in our case, each of the 5 co-founders) for a 1:1 during that time.
• There would be no benefits granted during this time.
• And, during the probation period the employee gets paid as a 1099 (consultant).
• The action at the end of the probation period; either get hired as a FTE or we part ways.

What Are The Pros?

• It may weed out some folks that know they are ‘talking the talk but can’t walk the walk’, as they say.
• It could save the time and expense of bringing them onto benefits and payroll.
• There is no employee-employer relationship, meaning we may lessen the need for any type of severance and of litigation.
• And most importantly, have more confidence that there is a mutually beneficial business relationship.

What Are The Cons?

• We could lose some very strong candidates who don’t want to jump through the hoops and leave a full-time job to “maybe” get a job. Or just take another job offer that doesn’t have this hoop.
• We may be on the hook to pay them for the full 45 days even if they don’t stick around that long.
• Any more?

After a call with our legal guys and doing some other research, I learned a few things:

• You really have to look at where your employees reside; there are state-by-state regulations to consider.
• In CA if they’re doing the job of a full time employee they should be paid as such. Uber is having a huge issue with that ruling. One way around this could be to set the probationary period up as a set ‘project’ with a specific start and end date (the length of your probationary period).
• A contractor relationship doesn’t guarantee less of a obligation to the worker, nor does it shield you any more from potential litigation. In California, a company like Dasheroo actually has as much, if not more, rights in employer-employee relationships by hiring folks.

So what are we going to do?

It’s always a little murky. Bottom line is we always want to do right by, and respect people. But it’s a two-way street and we take our business very seriously. The difference between hiring an A-player and someone else who may not ‘cut it’ has huge negative affects: the cost of on-boarding, and the lost time you’ll never recover in the productivity you expected.

So, we’re probably going to take a hybrid approach to the situation: continue to hire on a traditional full time employee basis, but start to follow a 45-day plan that mirrors most of Buffer’s probation program. A 45-day on-boarding process with weekly 1:1s with senior team members, a very clear action and progress plan by week, and at the end of the 45 days a meeting with the hiring manager to make sure there’s a mutually beneficial working relationship. Will we go as far as Zappo’s, who we really admire? They actually offer to pay people $2000 to go away after the first few weeks. That practice is ballsy and I love it! But it can also take an HR infrastructure that we, and most other startups don’t have. And it can get costly and abused.

So like I said, it’s a 2-way street, it is incumbent upon our folks to properly vet potential new team members prior to hiring, so many times you can find yourself in a ‘hair on fire’ moment when you just need to fill that gap. Fight that temptation, take a little more time to get to know your potential newest A-player and you’ll win in the end.