tl;dr at the end
I've been meaning to tell this story for a while now, as it happened pre-covid. But reading through this sub just fuels the desire to get it out in the open.
So at the beginning of 2019, I began temping in London for this company. It was a 3-month fixed term contract and the work was 5 full days per week. I quickly built a rapport with my colleagues & team mates, and my team manager was impressed with how quickly I was able to learn and pick things up. I really enjoyed working there and made no secret about the fact that, given the opportunity, I would happily stay for longer than the fixed 3 months.
After the 3 months was up, multiple other teams from across the company wanted me to work with them, so my contract kept on getting extended. This went on for a while until somebody from the team I originally worked with announced they were leaving, thus a new position would be open. Two of the senior managers notified me of this independently, and expressed that they were incredibly keen for me to go for it. So I did, and I got the role, so I was back working with that first team, this time in a full-time, permanent capacity. Albeit with a 6-month probation period (this detail is important).
About 2 months into my new role, our team manager got a new position internally, and so we got a brand new manager. They were nice enough, and I felt we got on well, but I considered the previous manager as more of a friend than the new one.
So cut to the start of 2020. A few things were happening around this time:
- We were due to have a meeting to discuss the team budget, but it was postponed about 5 times
- Annual performance review meetings were coming up, but they kept getting postponed too.
- I had requested annual leave and, you guessed it, the response just kept getting postponed.
I was also 7 months into my permanent role, meaning my 6-month probation should have ended, however I had not heard anything about it.
One Friday evening, as I was about to leave, I got an email from the manager asking to see me on Monday for an important meeting. I assumed the worst, as I generally do, and fretted about it for the entire weekend.
It turned out that the meeting, with my manager and the interim HR lead, was to inform me that my probation was unsuccessful and they would not be continuing with me in the role. This of course shocked me, as I had never had a single piece of negative feedback about my performance. I got on with all of my colleagues and fulfilled my role to a high standard. Being me, I didn't say much in the meeting, as I was in shock. This also meant that I didn't receive the full severance package.
The next day, two more members of my team were made redundant, and another handed in their notice. I decided to peruse my contract, which I still had in my emails, and find the section about probation periods. It stated that once the 6 months was up, one of three things would happen:
- My position would be confirmed as permanent
- My position would be terminated
- My probation would be extended for a further fixed period.
I got some legal advice and wrote a letter to HR explaining that, as neither points 1 or 2 happened after 6 months (as we were in the 7th at the time) I could only assume that my probation had been extended. I received a letter back rather promptly saying something along the lines of “your probation has ended, but we have decided to pay you the full severance package because you were good at your job” which, to me, translates as “we're going to pay you what we actually owe you so that you don't take us to court.”
So that's it, really. I did hear that in the weeks that followed, the company experienced a large number of resignations. As far as I know, that same manager is still there today. Just goes to show it's always worth following things up, and if you have an instinct, pursue it.
tl;dr: company tried to get away with paying me less by pretending I hadn't passed my probation, when in fact it should have been a redundancy.