September 15, 2026 · 1 min read
The first 90 days decide whether a hire works
Most early exits are set in motion long before probation ends. Here is what to put in place on day 1, day 30, day 60 and day 90.
A hire is not a success on the day the contract is signed. It is a success at the end of the probation period, when both sides know the decision is right. Between those two points sits the part most companies leave to chance.
Day 1: agree what good looks like
Before the laptop arrives, write down what the role has to achieve in the first month, who the person will work with and how often you will speak. Two sides of a page is enough. It takes an hour and it removes the single biggest source of early friction: two people with two different pictures of the same job.
Day 30: name the friction while it is small
Thirty days in, everything is still fixable. Ask the direct questions: what is unclear, what is slower than expected, where is the new person waiting on someone else. Write down the answers and what changes because of them.
Day 60: correct the course, not the person
By day 60 you know whether the scope was right. Sometimes the job on paper is not the job that exists. Adjusting the scope at this point is cheap; discovering it after probation is not.
Day 90: a mid-probation review on evidence
A mid-probation review that ends in “let’s see how it goes” helps nobody. Use the scorecard you wrote on day 1: what was achieved, what was not, and what the development plan looks like for the rest of probation. If the answer is no, both sides saw it coming, and there is still time to act on it.
None of this is complicated. It is just structure that nobody owns when a small company is busy growing. That is usually where we come in.