Answer for Employee attendance issues during 3 month probation period

[Conner Lantz]

#88115

As the employee is in his probationary period and you did communicate the attendance policy, there is little risk in letting this employee go. However, we would recommend that you focus on this being an attendance issue and not because he was sick. You may also want to request a doctor’s note. If the employee in question is legitimately ill with a serious medical condition it may be perfectly reasonable that they are not at work, but it does place an unnecessary burden on the employer given the recency of his hire and the inability to train the employee.
You cannot terminate an employee for being sick. You cannot issue progressive discipline for an employee being sick. You can however do both for attendance issues.
But again, this is moot given the probationary period, provided you have a clause in your employment offer that clearly defines the probationary period.
If you are afraid of repercussions, we would recommend asking for a medical note first – but it seems like a decision has been made already, and it isn’t unreasonable to want to terminate a new employee that has missed 60% of their workdays since being hired.