Lifecycle
In most companies probation ends by expiring.
Nobody decided anything. A date passed, the person is now confirmed, and the concerns that existed in month two were never written down — so they cannot be acted on in month nine either.
The four outcomes
Three of them are not “confirm”.
A probation period that can only end one way is a formality. This one ends with a recorded act: confirmed, extended to a new date, placed on an improvement plan, or exited.
Each is a decision somebody made on a day, which is exactly what is missing when a difficult conversation happens eight months later.
- Confirmthe ordinary one, and a dated decision rather than a lapse
- Extenda new end date, recorded — not a quiet second chance nobody wrote down
- Put on a planexpectations written down while there is still time to meet them
- Exitthe decision this period exists to make possible
- Separate from employee editing —
Running a probation action is its own permission, distinct from being able to edit somebody's record — because they are different responsibilities.
- Extension is explicit —
A new end date on the record, not an informal second chance that nobody can evidence either way.
- An improvement plan cannot be an ending —
It is deliberately not a terminal state — somebody on a plan still has to be confirmed or exited afterwards. Which stops the most common misuse of one, which is parking a decision indefinitely.
- Exiting closes both records at once —
Ending a probation with an exit flips the employee record and stamps the date in the same act, rather than leaving somebody confirmed in one place and still employed in another.
- It is created for them, on hire —
Anchored to the joining date from your default period, without anybody remembering to set one up.
- Confirmation releases the leave it withheld —
Leave types can hold back accrual during probation and back-credit it the moment somebody is confirmed — in the same act, so a partial credit cannot exist.
- Ending soon is a screen —
With a window you choose, and anything already overdue shown whatever the window says.
Fair questions
Mostly about the uncomfortable outcome.
›What happens if nobody acts before the end date?
The outcome never defaults — nobody is confirmed by a date passing. But the paperwork does get prepared: a week out, the confirmation letter is drafted into the letters queue and waits there for a person to issue it. Automate the drafting, never the judgement.
›Do managers have to come to HR to confirm somebody?
No. A manager decides probation for their own reports from the same portal they check their payslip in — confirm, extend, put on a plan, or exit.
›Is an intern put on probation?
No — deliberately skipped, because a fixed-term intern has an end date rather than a confirmation. And a zero-month default opts a whole company out.
›Can we extend more than once?
Extension sets a new end date. Whether repeatedly extending is wise is a question for you and your counsel, not a limit the product imposes.
›Does an improvement plan track progress?
It records that one exists and the decision that followed. The conversations themselves belong in one-to-ones, where both people have their own space.
›Who can run these actions?
Whoever holds the probation permission — deliberately not everybody who can edit an employee record.
Book a demo
Let one run to its end date.
The second step is the one that matters: the paperwork is ready, the decision is not made.
- Watch the confirmation letter draft itself a week out
- Leave it unissued and confirm nobody is confirmed by default
- Extend one instead, and try to set a date before the original
- Confirm somebody and check the leave that was withheld