I was talking to a client recently who has one of the best recruitment processes I’ve seen. He hires for values and behaviours, not just what’s on someone’s CV. Genuinely impressive stuff.

And then it all falls apart at probation.

Because for all that structure on the way in, what happens at the end of probation is often just a chat. Informal, undocumented, decided on gut feel. That’s a problem on a good day. From January, it’s about to get a lot more expensive.

Recruitment was never the whole answer

Good hiring reduces your risk. It doesn’t remove it. You can ask every values-based and competency-based interview question in the book and still end up with a mismatch, a bad month, or someone who simply isn’t right for the role. That’s what a probationary period is for.

The recipe for success was never just recruitment. It’s recruitment and a great probationary period, working together. Skip the second half, and the first half only gets you so far.

Why this matters more from January

If you took someone on from 1 July 2026 onwards, they now qualify for unfair dismissal protection at six months, not two years. The first wave of those six-month marks lands this January. In addition, anyone you took on before 1 July will also qualify if they have over 6 months service by 1 January 2027.

That’s a significant cut to the amount of time you have to get a hire right, and a significant increase in the number of people who could bring a claim if you get it wrong.

The numbers behind that aren’t small. Defending a tribunal claim typically costs somewhere between £10,000 and £25,000 in legal fees, climbing past £20,000 for discrimination or whistleblowing claims – and that’s before you get anywhere near a payout. Average tribunal awards then sit between £4,300 and £8,500 on top. Note, that’s just the average amount!

Compare that to what a properly run probation period actually costs: a bit of structure, some documentation, and a manager who knows what they’re doing. Framed like that, spending a few hundred quid a month on getting it right isn’t really a decision.

What a good probation process actually looks like

Good probation starts on day one, not in week eleven. That means telling someone plainly what they’re being assessed on, and what you expect to see by the end of their probation. Link it to the standards you’ve already set out – if your team doesn’t know what “good” looks like, you can’t fairly judge whether they’ve hit it.

From there, it needs regular check-ins, not just a single conversation at the end. A simple midway review, where a manager records whether someone’s on track or needs to improve before the end of probation, does most of the heavy lifting here.

Let people see the bus coming

This is one of the ideas at the heart of how I work with clients: people should see the bus coming.

What usually happens is the opposite. Managers wait, and wait, and wait, then fail someone’s probation, and nobody saw it coming – least of all the person who’s just lost their job. That’s rarely a performance failure. It’s a process and documentation failure, and most importantly, a management failure.

If you’ve told someone what’s expected of them, recorded where they’ve fallen short, agreed a plan, and given them a fair chance to hit it, the final conversation isn’t difficult. It’s just the next logical step in a conversation you’ve already been having.

Give your managers the toolkit, not just the responsibility

None of this works if you hand a manager the responsibility for probation without giving them the tools to manage it. A manager who’s never been shown how to run a proper check-in will default to what’s comfortable: an informal chat when things are clearly fine, or awkward silence when they’re not.

A toolkit fixes that. A midway form that prompts a plain yes or no on progress. A clear link back to the expectations set on day one. A structure that means nothing rests solely on a manager’s memory of a conversation that happened three months ago.

Prevention beats panic, every time

A brilliant recruitment process will get good people through your door. What keeps them, and what protects you if it doesn’t work out, is what happens next.

Build a probation process with real structure, give your managers the toolkit to run it properly, and you get two things at once: fewer tribunal risks, and fewer conversations that feel like ambushes to the person on the other side of them.

If your probation process currently amounts to “we’ll figure it out at the end,” now’s the time to fix that – well before January.

Want to prevent a HR headache come January? Get in touch if you want help creating a process that works for you while keeping you compliant.

Holiday sounds simple. Book it, take it, done. Except it isn’t, and I see the same handful of mistakes crop up with clients every single year.

Get holiday wrong and it isn’t just an admin headache. It’s a financial liability sitting on your books, whether you’ve noticed it or not. So here are five things about holiday entitlement that catch people out, plus what to do about it.

1. Bank holidays don’t have to be separate

It’s a common myth that bank holidays sit on top of annual leave. They don’t have to. The statutory minimum is 5.6 weeks, which works out at 28 days for a full-time employee, and that 28 days already includes bank holidays. You can offer more than that. But you can’t offer less.

Where people trip up is when they separate the two out and then panic about part-time calculations. Part-timers are entitled to a pro-rata share of bank holidays too, whether or not they actually work a Monday. Someone working four days a week gets four-fifths of the bank holiday entitlement, Monday or no Monday.

Easiest fix? Add both entitlements together first, then pro-rata the whole lot. One calculation, not two, and far less room to get it wrong.

2. You can tell them when to take it

Yes, really. The Employment Rights Act gives you the right to mandate holiday, as long as you give notice equal to double the length of leave you’re asking for. Want them to take a week off? Two weeks’ notice. Two days? Four days’ notice.

You can also refuse a holiday request. I’ve got a client who kept complaining that employees put in holiday at the worst possible times, and my answer was simple: why are you agreeing to it? Refuse it.

A decent holiday policy makes this so much easier. Set blackout dates for your busiest periods. Better still, if there’s a quiet stretch every year, say a January shutdown, you can require your team to take leave then and even write it into the contract. Most employers don’t realise this, so everyone ends up scrambling to use their holiday in March, right when the business can least afford it. It doesn’t have to be that way.

3. Holiday keeps accruing when someone’s off sick

Annual leave doesn’t pause for sickness, family leave, or anything else. Someone off sick for a year is still building up holiday, and they can book and take annual leave during that time too.

It is capped eventually, so it doesn’t build up forever. But while it’s accruing, it’s a real financial liability. And if you end up dismissing someone for long-term sickness, you’ll need to pay out whatever holiday they’ve built up but not taken.

4. Holiday isn’t just basic pay

If someone regularly earns commission, bonus or overtime, that can affect how their holiday pay is calculated. It’s not always just their standard salary. This is one of those areas that gets complicated fast, and it’s an easy one to get wrong without realising.

5. “Use it or lose it” isn’t really a thing

I hear this a lot: if they don’t book it, they lose it. Not quite. This is a statutory entitlement, so it carries over where someone’s been on long-term sick or family leave, or simply hasn’t had a genuine opportunity to take it.

It’s less about what not to do and more about how to manage holiday entitlement

The bigger point here is that holiday needs managing proactively. If someone left tomorrow, you’d have to pay out every day of accrued but untaken leave. Better to see that coming than get caught out by it.

Holiday isn’t paperwork, it’s money. Get your contract terms and your holiday policy sorted, and you’re managing that liability instead of it managing you.

Prevention beats panic every time.

If your holiday policy is more “good enough” than watertight, that’s exactly what a Mayday HR MOT sorts out.

Get in touch and let me know what you’re dealing with so I can help.

I had a message in my inbox this week. A business owner, completely exasperated, about an employee who seems to be off sick almost every month.

Over 20 days in two years. Always just under the seven-day threshold. Never enough to trigger a doctor’s note. And the manager? At their wit’s end.

Persistent sickness absence is one of the most common things I help with. And almost every time, the same mistakes are being made.

Here’s what you should actually be doing.

1. Check your policy

Most businesses already have a sickness absence policy. They just never look at it or follow it.

A good policy will have trigger points built in. Something like three separate absences in 12 weeks or more than X days in a rolling period. When those triggers are hit, the policy tells you exactly what happens next.

At minimum, it gives you the right to hold a formal absence review meeting if things are getting excessive.

No policy? Get one. Not sure how to get one? Get in touch.

2. Have a return to work meeting. Every single time.

I cannot stress this enough. A return to work meeting after every absence is one of the most effective tools you have, but most managers skip it entirely!

It doesn’t need to be long. Five minutes. “You were off yesterday – how are you? Are you fit to be back?” That’s it.

But here’s why it matters.

First, it’s a genuine duty of care. You’re checking in, making sure your employee is well enough to return, and opening the door to a proper conversation if something’s going on.

Second, it signals that you’re paying attention. For anyone taking liberties, that conversation alone is often enough to make them think twice.

And sometimes it opens the door to something you’d never have found otherwise. I once managed someone who called in sick with sickness and diarrhoea so regularly it had become almost predictable. A couple of times a month, every month.

In the end I sat down with him and said: “If I had sickness and diarrhoea as often as you do, I’d be really worried. I’d be at the doctor’s. Why haven’t you been?”

Turns out he was struggling with a drug problem and had been using sickness as a cover. He’d never expected anyone to actually ask.

That’s what a five-minute conversation can do.

3. If it’s escalating, have a proper absence review meeting

If absence has hit excessive levels, it’s time to sit down formally. Be clear about what you’ve observed. Explain the impact on the business. And give them the opportunity to respond.

Something like: “You’ve been absent for 23 days in the past year. That’s not sustainable for you or for us. I want to understand what’s going on.”

This conversation also helps you work out whether you’re dealing with a conduct issue or a capability issue. And that distinction matters a lot.

Conduct vs capability: what’s the difference?

Persistent sickness absence can fall under either:

• Conduct – if the absence looks like a choice (repeated Mondays, patterns around events, nothing medically substantiated)
• Capability – if the employee genuinely cannot maintain attendance due to ill health

Both can, ultimately, lead to dismissal. But the process is different, and you have to follow it correctly.

I have disciplined someone for persistent sickness absence before. Period pain one week, sprained ankle the next, headache the week after. When there’s no underlying condition and the pattern doesn’t stack up, that’s usually a conduct matter.

But if a disability is involved – or might be involved – you need to tread very carefully.

Long-term or health-related sickness? Get occupational health involved

If the absence is health-related, or you think there might be something underlying, you need proper medical guidance before making any decisions.

My advice: refer to occupational health rather than waiting on a GP report. It’s quicker, it’s more practical, and it gives you the kind of workplace-focused assessment you actually need.

Occupational health can tell you:

• Whether the employee is fit to work
• What reasonable adjustments might help
• Whether a phased return is appropriate
• Whether the absence is likely to continue long-term

Tribunals take a dim view of employers who dismiss someone for sickness-related absence without an occupational health assessment. Particularly where disability discrimination is claimed. Don’t skip this step.

What about doctor’s notes?

One of the most common questions I get asked.

For absences of seven days or less, employees can self-certify. You cannot require a GP note. After seven days, a fit note is required.

Asking for a GP letter for shorter absences won’t work – most GPs won’t provide one, and the ones who do may charge the employee for it. It also risks creating a grievance. Follow your policy and use return to work meetings instead. That’s what they’re there for.

Good processes prevent sickness absence abuse

Almost every sickness absence problem I see has one thing in common: no one has ever had a proper conversation.

Employers let it slide, hoping it’ll improve. It rarely does. And by the time they call me, it’s already messier than it needed to be.

You don’t have to accept excessive sickness absence. You do have to follow the right process.

And if you’re dealing with persistent sickness – especially where a disability or long-term condition might be involved – please don’t handle it alone. This is exactly the kind of situation where getting proper HR advice early saves you a significant amount of time, money, and stress.

Get in touch and let me know what you’re dealing with so I can help.

I’m going to say something that might raise a few eyebrows.

If there’s someone in your business who genuinely isn’t right for the role, and you’ve been putting off dealing with it, now is the time to act.

Not because I’m encouraging anyone to be ruthless. Not because I think employers should be able to dismiss people on a whim. But because the law is changing, the window is narrowing, and if you wait, you will have far less room to manoeuvre and you risk a longer, drawn-out ‘moving on’ process.

Let me explain.

Unfair dismissal law: What’s changing and when

Right now, employees need two years of service before they can bring an unfair dismissal claim. That gives employers a reasonable window to identify when someone isn’t working out and deal with it, provided they aren’t breaching their contract or discriminating.

From 1 January 2027, that qualifying period drops to six months.

Six months! That’s barely past the end of a standard probation period for most businesses. Which means the window for managing underperformance with lower legal risk is about to get significantly smaller, but the cost of getting it wrong stays exactly the same.

Employment tribunal legal fees start at around £20,000. Compensation awards are on top of that. I’ve seen employers walk away from disputes £50,000 down. That’s not scaremongering, that’s just a bad Tuesday for those employers.

The probation ‘gone wrong’ cases I’m dealing with right now

Think it won’t happen to you? Think again, and trust me when I say, it could happen to anyone.

I want to give you a sense of what it looks like when employers wait too long, or act too fast without proper process, because both are equally costly.

Case one: the on-the-spot redundancy

A business owner fell out with a senior member of staff. In one meeting – no process, no consultation, no paper trail – he made them redundant on the spot.

That employee has now brought a claim. The employer is looking at least £25,000 in compensation plus around £20,000 in legal fees. £45,000, because a conversation went badly and no one stopped to think about the process.

Had they called a HR consultant before that meeting? An advice call averages at £125. Walking them through the whole redundancy process properly would have cost less than £500.

Case two: the phone dismissal

An employee had a panic attack at work and asked to work from home the next day. Her manager, frustrated and not thinking clearly, rang her up and sacked her over the phone.

She had over two years’ service. It went to a tribunal. The employer lost and ended up £50,000 down.

Their excuse?

“Nobody told me how to do this properly. I took over the business from my dad. I didn’t know.”

And, you guessed it, it did not wash with the judge.

I hear this a lot. And I do have sympathy, genuinely. Most employers who get it wrong aren’t bad people. They’re just people who didn’t know what they didn’t know, at exactly the wrong moment.

But “I didn’t know” is not a defence at a tribunal.

So why is now the time to act?

The Employment Rights Act 2025: Big changes to probations

Because under the current rules, if someone has under two years’ service and you follow a reasonable process, your exposure is significantly lower. You still need to act fairly (I’ll come to that), but the legal risk is more manageable.

After January 2027, that buffer disappears. A new hire who isn’t performing at month seven is in almost the same legal position as someone who’s been with you for ten years. That changes everything about how you approach underperformance, capability, and probation.

If you have someone in your team right now who you know, hand on heart, shouldn’t be there, the sensible, commercially sound thing to do is deal with it properly, before the rules change.

“Properly” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Probation processes are still essential

I want to be clear about something. Acting now doesn’t mean acting recklessly. The businesses that end up in the worst trouble are the ones that panic, skip the process, and assume that under two years means anything goes.

It doesn’t. You still need:

• A clear, documented reason for dismissal
• Evidence that the employee knew what was expected of them
• A record of any concerns raised and support offered
• A proper conversation; not a phone call, not a corridor chat
• Consideration of any protected characteristics (think disability, pregnancy, and others don’t care about length of service)

That last one catches people out more than almost anything else. I recently had a client going through redundancies where most employees had under two years’ service, straightforward enough. Then one of them mentioned she was pregnant. Enhanced protections apply regardless of length of service. The outcome didn’t change, but the process had to, and quickly.

This is exactly the kind of thing that trips employers up when they try to handle it alone.

A note on dismissing someone decently

I’ve been doing this for over twelve years. I’ve supported hundreds of dismissals. And here’s something I’ve learned: how you handle the end of someone’s employment matters; not just legally, but empathetically.

I once supported the dismissal of a painter and decorator. At the end of the meeting, he asked to go and visit the banqueting room he’d spent weeks decorating years previously. His wife came with him. We let him have a cup of tea. We handled it with dignity.

People who feel they’ve been treated with respect are far less likely to go to tribunal. That’s not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

The time to dismiss is now

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is changing the game. The qualifying period is dropping. The window for acting with lower legal risk is closing.

If you have a situation you’ve been putting off, I’d encourage you to stop putting it off and get proper, professional support to handle it the right way.

If you’re reading this and realising support is what you need, check out my Mayday Maintainer. For £225 + VAT per month, you get ongoing HR support so that when these situations arise, you know what to do, you’ve got someone to call, and you’re not making expensive decisions under pressure at 4pm on a Friday.