Almost every employment offer in Pakistan mentions a probation period, and almost none of them use it. The date passes, nobody says anything, and the employee is confirmed by silence. That wastes the single cheapest piece of risk control available to an employer, and it is unfair to the employee too, who spends months unsure where they stand.
What probation is actually for
It is a defined window in which both sides establish whether this works, with a lower cost of ending it than a confirmed role carries.
Note both sides. Employees are assessing you as well — whether the job resembles the advert, whether they can work with the manager, whether the business is stable. Treating probation as a one-way test is how businesses lose good people in month two without understanding why.
What it is not is a licence to underpay or to defer decisions. A probationary employee does the job and is paid for the job.
Setting a sensible length
One month suits junior and administrative roles where competence is visible quickly.
Three months is the standard for most office, accounts, sales and technical positions, and is long enough to see a full cycle of the work — a month end, a sales cycle, a project delivered.
Six months is occasionally justified for senior roles with long feedback loops, and is otherwise too long. A manager you cannot assess in three months is a manager you are not managing.
State the length in the written offer, along with the notice that applies during it, which is normally shorter than the confirmed notice period. Leaving probation open-ended is the most common drafting error and it makes the whole arrangement unenforceable in practice.
Decide what you are assessing, before it starts
Vagueness here is why probations get rubber-stamped. Write three or four things you will actually look at, and share them with the person on day one.
For most office roles those are: whether the core work is being done to standard, whether they work without constant direction, how they handle being corrected, and whether they fit how the team actually operates.
For sales roles, add activity before results — a three-month probation rarely shows closed revenue, but it shows whether somebody is making calls, following up and recording what happened.
For finance roles, add accuracy and whether they raise discrepancies rather than smoothing them over.
Avoid assessing on things nobody explained. A person judged for not knowing a process they were never shown is being set up, and it is the most common unfairness in Pakistani probations.
The three conversations that make it work
End of week two. Ten minutes. Is the job what you expected? What is unclear? What do you need that you do not have? This catches the access, tools and explanation problems that otherwise fester for a month.
End of month one. Twenty minutes, more specific. Here is what is going well, here is what needs to change, here is what I will do to help. Be concrete — "the reports need to be with me by Tuesday morning" rather than "be more organised".
End of probation. The decision, delivered in writing.
Businesses that hold these three keep good hires and catch bad ones early. Businesses that hold none discover a problem in month five and then have a much harder conversation.
Confirming properly
If it is working, say so, in writing, on or before the date. A short letter confirming the role, the confirmed notice period and any salary change agreed.
This matters more than it sounds. An employee whose probation date passes in silence does not assume they passed — a good number assume the employer is undecided, and start keeping their options open. A one-paragraph confirmation removes that entirely and costs nothing.
If a salary increase was promised on confirmation, pay it on time. Nothing damages a new employment relationship faster than a promised rise that arrives two months late.
Ending it, if it is not working
Do it inside the probation period, not after it. Businesses routinely let a marginal probation lapse because the conversation is uncomfortable, and then find themselves managing the same problem a year later with far less room.
Do it properly: tell the person directly, give the notice the contract specifies for probation, settle everything owed on the final day, and recover access, keys and equipment.
Be honest but brief about the reason. People are entitled to know why, and a vague answer is worse for them than a specific one. What you are not obliged to do is negotiate the decision.
And write a factual reference if asked — dates, role and duties. You are not required to recommend somebody, but confirming basic facts costs nothing and refusing to says more about the business than the person.
Where employers go wrong
Extending probation repeatedly. One extension, for a stated reason, with a new date, is defensible. A second means you have already decided and are avoiding saying so.
Using probation to avoid paying properly. A probationary salary substantially below the confirmed one attracts candidates who will leave the moment something better appears, and it filters out the people who had a choice.
Treating it as automatic. If nobody is assessing anything, you do not have a probation period. You have a date in a contract.
Saying nothing until the end. A person who first hears about a problem at their final review was denied the chance to fix it, and knows it.
A note on the legal side
Employment law in Pakistan sits largely with the provinces, and obligations differ by business type, sector and headcount. Standard practice for office employment is a written contract stating the probation length and the notice applying during it.
Get advice specific to your situation rather than relying on what another business does, particularly as you grow past a handful of employees. What is universal is the documentation: a signed contract, a stated probation period, written reviews, and a written outcome. Businesses that keep those rarely have disputes, whatever the governing rules turn out to be.
Probation for household staff is a different thing
Worth separating, because employers sometimes apply office practice to domestic hiring and it does not transfer.
Household roles are better assessed through a paid practical trial before hiring — a day of the real job, paid at the going daily rate — followed by a shorter probation of about a month. The reason is that domestic work shows itself immediately in a way office work does not: you can see whether somebody cooks well, drives safely or cleans properly within a day, whereas an accounts hire needs a month end to assess.
For live-in household roles there is an additional consideration. Ending an arrangement also ends the person's housing, which raises the stakes of every probation decision. Run the trial before anybody moves in rather than after, so an unsuccessful trial is a declined job rather than an eviction.
Our paid practical trial guidance covers how to design one by role.
Keeping the paperwork light but real
None of this requires an HR department. What it requires is four documents per hire, each short.
The offer letter stating role, salary, start date, probation length and the notice applying during it. The contract, two pages. A one-paragraph note from each review conversation, dated — what was discussed, what was agreed. And the written outcome at the end.
Kept in one folder per employee, that is enough to run a fair process and to demonstrate you ran one. Businesses that keep it rarely have disputes; businesses relying on memory find that both parties remember differently, and sincerely so.
What the employee should be told, and when
Probation works only if the person knows the terms, and a surprising number of Pakistani employees could not tell you their probation length or what happens at the end of it.
State it three times. In the offer letter: the length, the notice during it, and the date it ends. On day one: what will be assessed, in plain terms. At the first review: where they currently stand.
That is not bureaucracy — it is the difference between a person who knows what to work on and a person guessing. It also removes the most common complaint in employment disputes here, which is not that a decision was unfair but that it arrived without warning.
If the role changes materially during probation — the job turns out to be different from the advert, or the business pivots — say so and reset expectations rather than assessing somebody against a job they were never actually given.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I extend a probation period?
Once, for a stated reason, with a new end date confirmed in writing, where genuine uncertainty remains — for example if the person was ill or the work they were hired for was delayed. Repeated extensions are a decision being avoided.
Does an employee on probation get leave?
Treat leave entitlement as accruing from the start date and say so in the contract. Refusing all leave during a three-month probation is common practice and a poor one, particularly for illness.
Should the salary be lower during probation?
Generally no. Pay the rate for the job. Where a business genuinely cannot commit to the full figure until the role is proven, say so at offer stage with the confirmed figure and date in writing — not as a vague promise.
What if somebody resigns during probation?
They are entitled to, on the notice the contract specifies. Ask why in an exit conversation and listen — early resignations usually reveal something about the role description, the manager or the onboarding, and that information is worth more than the individual departure.