probationary employees

Probationary Employees

Probation Period and Standards

29 October 2016

Probationary EmployeeIRR of the Labor Code: “There is probationary employment where the employee, upon his engagement, is made to undergo a trial period during which the employer determines his fitness to qualify for regular employment, based on reasonable standards made known to him at the time of engagement.”

Citation: Sec. 6, Rule I, Book VI, Implementing Rules & Regulations of the Labor Code; cf. Article 294, Labor Code

Rules to Probationary Employment1. Where the work for which the employee has been engaged is learnable or apprenticeable in accordance with the standards prescribed by [now TESDA], the period of probationary employment shall be limited to the authorized learnership or apprenticeship period, whichever is applicable.


Rules to Probationary Employment2. Where the work is neither learnable nor apprenticeable, the period of probationary employment shall not exceed six months reckoned from the date the employee actually started working.Important: Academic teaching personnel in private schools have a longer probationary period.• Basic education: not more than 3 years• Higher education: not more than 6 consecutive semesters or 9

consecutive trimesters of satisfactory service

Citation: Sec. 6, Rule I, Book VI, Implementing Rules & Regulations of the Labor Code; cf. Article 294, Labor Code;2010 Revised Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education (DEPED); 2008 Manual of Regulations for Private Higher Education (CHED)

Rules to Probationary Employment3. The services of an employee who has been engaged on probationary basis may be terminated only for a just or authorized cause, when he fails to qualify as a regular employee in accordance with reasonable standards prescribed by the employer.


Rules to Probationary Employment4. In all cases of probationary employment, the employer shall make known to the employee the standards under which he will qualify as a regular employee at the time of his engagement. Where no standards are made known to the employee at that time, he shall be deemed a regular employee.


Case LawAbbott Laboratories, Philippines v. Alcaraz (2013)• The probationary employee (manager) who did not qualify filed a

complaint claiming that he was never informed of the standards for the position and thus he was a regular.

HELD: The employee was a probationary.• “… the employer is made to comply with two (2) requirements when

dealing with a probationary employee: first, the employer must communicate the regularization standards to the probationary employee; and second, the employer must make such communication at the time of the probationary employee’s engagement. If the employer fails to comply with either, the employee is deemed as a regular and not a probationary employee.”

• How employer’s expectations were communicated: job ad with work description, offer sheet, employment contract, company orientation, etc.


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