Unsolicited, unnecessary Probation Report

[Neb-Maat-Re]

Despite the many years I have worked in this field, it's good to know that people (employees) can still surprise me.

I am currently the HR Manager for a very new, small organisation. There was very little in the way of HR processess and systems when I arrived, and I am generally implementing things on a "priority need" basis. One of these has been a probation assessment process.

The organisation was originally brought together from bits and pieces of other organisations and so most of our employees weren't/aren't subject to probation. A small number are, and as we move forward this will increase.

After rolling out the initial round of probation assessments, I have received one for an employee who is not subject to probation. Apparently this person insisted on having an assessment and their manager gave them one.

My general practice is not to keep irrelevant or unnecessary documentation on file, in case it causes confusion at a later time. On the other hand, I don't want to just dispose of this particular item either. My instinct is to return it to the employee and advise them that they may like to keep it for their own records.

I'm just interested in what others might do.

[Sonya P]

Regardless of the fact that the individual was not subject to probation, given that the assessment was actually conducted and it was recorded, I would hang on to it.

[Qld IR Consultant]

I agree 100% with Sonya. You may need to reference it at a later date and if its in regards to poor performance than I hazard a guess the employee won't keep their copy for long.

[Tiger]

Of course you must retain it - it goes to the guy's performance whether it was necessary or not. A couple of sheets of paper in a file or a file in a drive somewhere is not a big deal surely.
I do agree however it is a little odd!

[Neb-Maat-Re]

it goes to the guy's performance

Well, we are actually introducing a completely separate performance management process, and all this probation report does is recommend that the probation period continues - when it doesn't exist in the first place.

[Neb-Maat-Re]

Thanks to everyone for your input.

Although I seem to be in the minority on this, I am going to stick with my initial plan to return this to the employee. Apart from it being being irrelevant because the employee is not subject to probation, there are a couple of other issues:

- there is a misunderstanding among some staff (and some management) of the difference between probation and a performance management/planning process

- there is a level of paranoia among some staff because we dismissed one person during their probation period (exacerbated by that person telling everyone they had been sacked under the performance management process)

- there are a core group of agitators who would use this information (that an employee not subject to probation had a probation report on their file) as misinformation if they were to find out (they shouldn't, but it might come from the employee).