I’ve rarely seen probation reviews done well (if at all), yet they’re extremely important to get right. The good news is you can improve yours with a simple question to the team…

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Probation review is at least as important as interviewing

Interviewing provides an upfront reality check on certain skills, traits and the likely level of investment. In reality, it is always a very imperfect test and you can only truly gauge someones fit for a role / team / organisation after working with them for a few months.

Inexplicably, probations often receive nowhere near the same level of rigour as interviews. How often have you seen a ‘bar raiser’ review at probation, or a cross-functional sense check?

In my opinion, it’s this stage that requires more rigour, this is the final gate beyond which performance related issues become much harder to deal with and the point at which you have the data to make an informed decision. The good news is, this step doesn’t need to become complication or bloated.

Enhance your probation reviews with one simple question

So far you no doubt have your own opinion, and perhaps some light feedback from team members. I find my reviews have been greatly improved with the following question, sent to all Engineers / PMs / Designers that the individual has worked with:

1. Please choose one of the following:

2. why?

When sending out, I make clear that responses will be kept private regardless and never reach the individual. I usually anonymise the questionnaire.

What this question achieves

I broadly bucket new starters into 4 groups:

• Clear misfits - Obvious capability gap / red flag behaviours / proactive negative feedback from team
• Subtle misfits - Low potential / non-bar raising / neutral-to-negative impact on team or culture
• Subtle fits - medium-high potential / evidently bar raising / subtle but positive impact on team or culture
• Clear fits - ‘superstar’ level impact early on, proactive positive feedback from team

Clear fits / misfits are easy to spot. Its the big group in the middle that can be extremely hard to distinguish. Role fit has everything to do with team cohesion, collaboration, skillset, attitude, work ethic etc. That comes through in every team interaction and piece of work, which is impossible to see (particularly in hybrid / remote environments).

The best and simplest test I’ve seen work is an excitement check from the whole team - are they excited to continue working with this individual or not. This has consistently helped to draw a line between someone who’s going to drive the team (a bar raiser) and someone who’s set to be more of a ‘passenger’. Covered in many blogs / articles elsewhere, if you aren’t hiring in people who will lift the team bar, your team effectiveness/morale/engagement will inevitably drop over time.

The language in the question matters. You aren’t asking for an opinion on a decision, you’re asking about a feeling. I’ve found people far more willing to share and discuss a feeling, even if it has negative connotations for the individual.

Example results

I’ll focus here on the less obvious cases, a subtle fit vs subtle misfit.

A subtle fit

• Multiple people would be secretly happy to have them on the team
• Many people may be indifferent, for a variety of reasons (lack of direct working time, not interested in their particular expertise etc)
• No one would be secretly happy to have them in another team

There’s obviously some nuance here, e.g. a junior engineer may work with fewer team members. but ultimately there should be some positive sentiment for some, and otherwise-caveated indifference.

A subtle misfit

I tend to see two types of misfit:

1. Some team members would secretly be happy if they were on another team, even if others think differently.
2. Universal indifference across the team (no positive sentiment)

#1 may indicate a cultural clash, subtle rude behaviour or early frustration with an individuals’ output from those most likely to be impacted.

#2 may indicate low engagement with the team, low-average effort or impact etc.

Either can lie under the surface, invisible to managers. An individual may consider a negative interaction a small issue not worth mentioning, but on aggregate a recurring pattern can indicate a serious problem.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire

This questionnaire is a signal (smoke) from the team. It should prompt further investigation and discussions into an individuals output / attitude / working experiences with stakeholders etc so that you can form your own opinion on the matter. Ultimately, you want to find the tangible issues arising (the fire) that would necessitate and justify a probation failure or extension.

I tend to lean towards probation failure when it relates to poor attitude or behaviours logged across the team (unlikely to resolve), and probation extension where it relates to early engagement levels or output (potentially attributable to circumstances / slow starters etc). Either way, this should prompt a hold on a probation pass.

It’s important to recognise that this is still early on and some people may grow into roles slower. But that shouldn’t act to soften the entry gate to a permanent position. Probation extensions buy that extra time to ensure you’ve reached high confidence in their ongoing fit and you’re ultimately making the right call.