Probation review meeting template & best practices

Adding structure to any company processes can be beneficial. Whether it is recruitment, onboarding or probation, it’s important to maintain consistency across your organisation. When line managers and HR personnel have a template to hand, your processes should run smoothly.

What is a probation meeting template?

Most probation reviews will occur after 3 months, but some organisations opt for 6 months in the case of senior roles. This period allows your new employee to gain footing, take over projects, and start delivering results. It also allows you to assess them in the context of the environment.

But what should a review involve? The following elements should be included in your 3 month or 6 month probation review template:

• Preparation: Preparation is important for both the employer and the employee. The employee should be invited to review their job description and employment contract. They should also prepare any concerns and issues they want to discuss in the probation meeting. As an employer, you should prepare a review of both tangible and non-tangible KPIs to discuss. Being prepared with a probation review template will allow the meeting to flow and set expectations for the employee attending the meeting.
• Accompaniment: Whilst accompaniment is usually reserved for disciplinary or grievance procedures, add an invitation for the employee to bring a colleague or trade union representative.
  
• Review: The review portion of the meeting and your template should follow a structure similar to the following: objectives and performance evaluation, achievements, and improvements. These steps will allow you to assess the positives and if needed, highlight areas of improvement. It will also lead to the next step of the review meeting template.
• Outcome and Action Plan: This section will be a discussion of the outcomes of the review. The employee will receive confirmation that their probation period is either completed, extended, or their employment is terminated. In the case of completion or extension, it is always advisable to put an action plan in place for the next steps. Providing your employee with a strong action plan focused on their career development is integral to fostering a positive environment and growth mindset.
• Contact: The final step in the probation review template is to provide your employee with details of people to contact, in case they want to raise any questions or concerns. In the case of completed probation, this may just be their direct line manager. In the case of extended probation or termination of employment, an HR contact may be useful.

How to prepare for the meeting (including questions)

As an employer, it’s important to foster a safe and welcoming environment, and that extends to the probation meeting. The first step is to prepare a detailed agenda, which will cover the whole meeting. Share this agenda with your employee so they can be prepared with their questions and answers. An open communication channel is an essential part of a healthy working relationship. The questions you ask should be open-ended and the conversation should be of a two-way nature. Take a look at our article for 10 questions managers could ask in a probation review meeting. Your employee should feel comfortable discussing their experiences of the company so far openly.

Some of the open-ended questions you could include in your probation review meeting template include the following:

• What are you enjoying about the role so far?
• How would you like to grow within your team and role?
• What concerns do you have about the role?
• Are there any training or development opportunities you’d like to pursue?

An example probation meeting agenda

The agenda for the meeting will tend to follow a similar pattern, whatever role your employee may be in.

1. Welcome and purpose of the meeting: Brief introduction of attendees and a review of the purpose, which is to review the employee’s progress and determine the next steps.
2. Review of job role and expectations: Recap of the responsibilities detailed in the contract and a discussion of any changes.
3. Performance feedback: A recap of specific positive achievements and constructive feedback to areas identified for improvement.
4. Employee self-assessment: An opportunity for the employee to reflect on their progress from their point of view, as well as raise any resources they require to keep growing.
5. Action plan: Outline potential training and growth opportunities alongside agreeing on goals and timelines.
6. Decision discussion: Whether the probation is passed, extended, or employment is terminated.
7. Questions: Allow for any outstanding questions or concerns.
8. Documentation: Ensure that probation meeting review notes are shared with the employee and any further meetings are scheduled. This can be a secondary probation meeting or monthly one to ones.

General best practice for a successful probation review is to create a positive and supportive environment and focus on the employee’s career development. Ultimately, you want your employee to ask questions freely and go away from the meeting with a strong sense of their place and impact within the company.  

Creating a positive and supportive environment 

Creating a positive and supportive environment in a probation meeting is crucial to extracting the most feedback from your employees. The dialogue needs to be of a two-way nature and collaborative. Facilitate this by actively listening to your employees and asking open-ended questions. With open-ended questions, the employee feels that they can offer richer responses and you, in turn, gain a deeper understanding of their point of view. This open channel of communication can lead to improved employee wellbeing; employees will be more likely to raise concerns about the support they require. All of these benefits feed into better mental and physical wellbeing; take a look at our guide to workplace wellbeing. Wellbeing is a crucial point across industries; ill health costs employers nearly £30 billion. When you create a positive and supportive environment, constructive feedback is likely to be well received, and the focus can shift towards career development on the back of that feedback.

Focusing on their career development 

Dedicating time in your probation review template to focusing on the career development of your employees is integral to nurturing internal talent. Losing talent is a consistent problem in many industries and a lot of those issues can be attributed to a lack of investment in development. Therefore, focusing on an employee development plan is an effective strategy to boost retention. Our guide on employee development plans lays out their benefits. A 2025 study found that 88% of Gen Z employees prioritise finding a stable employer, with 57% believing it's more beneficial to develop a career with one company. They value supportive environments and clear career progression pathways, indicating that opportunities for growth and development are crucial for retention.

There are advantages to career development plans, beyond upskilling and retention:

1. Greater workforce productivity and effectiveness
2. Increased efficiency and revenues
3. Improved internal talent mobility
4. Reduced costs in recruiting, onboarding and training external candidates
5. Improved talent attraction and retention rates
6. Reduced employee churn
7. Higher staff satisfaction, fulfilment, purpose and engagement
8. An enhanced company culture
9. Greater visibility of succession planning
10. Improved compliance

Constructive addressing of performance issues

Providing constructive feedback on performance issues is essential irrespective of the result of a probation period. However, you need to do it in a positive manner and be helpful, rather than discouraging. Constructive feedback  is designed to promote growth by focusing on specific actions or behaviours and offering actionable suggestions.

• Establish trust
•  Balance positive and negative
• Observe, don’t interpret
• Be specific
• Don’t make it personal

Following up post-meeting

It is always crucial to follow up on the probation meeting and you can set up a section in your probation review template to cover that. Email the notes from the meeting to your employees and allow them to review them. Based on the action plan you’ve put in place, you should also start to effect some of the changes discussed. For example, if an employee requests a training course specific to their role, source the available dates for that course promptly. Actions like this will demonstrate to employees that they are valued and their career development is important to the company ethos. Ultimately, small steps like this will improve the company's reputation and make you an employer of choice.

A successful probation review meeting is one of the first steps on a pathway to success for your employees. If you foster a positive and open environment, you can develop action plans that help your employees grow and ultimately deliver more value to your business. The CIPD found that upskilling is the most popular solution, especially for hard-to-fill vacancies, with 52% % of businesses choosing this avenue.

With a free probation review template, like the one you can download below, every probation meeting can follow the same pattern and agenda. By building consistency, you set realistic expectations for your employees and prospects. All of these steps facilitate growth and success.

Unifying all of your HR processes, including probation reviews, is an essential step towards improved efficiency in your business. These improvements can be achieved through HR software, like PeopleXD, our powerful AI-enabled software.

Review Meeting Structure

An effective probation meeting should follow a consistent pattern and ask throughout questions. The purpose of the meeting is to establish how your employees have settled in and how they can develop going forward. The whole process of a probation review template should include the following steps:

• Preparation
• Accompaniment
• Review
• Outcome and Action Plan
• Contact

The review portion of the probation review meeting will follow a consistent agenda.

1. Welcome and purpose of the meeting
2.  Review of job role and expectations
3. Performance feedback
4. Employee self-assessment
5. Action plan
6. Decision discussion
7. Questions
8. Documentation

Questions to include in your meeting

• What aspects of the role do you find most challenging?
• How well do you feel you understand your responsibilities and expectations?
• Do you feel you have the support and resources needed to perform your job effectively?
• Is there anything you would like to improve about your workflow or processes?
• Are there any barriers preventing you from achieving your goals?
• How do you feel about the company culture and work environment?
• What are your short-term and long-term career goals within the company?
•  Are there any training or development opportunities you’d like to pursue?