at will employment

As a Pennsylvania employer, our personnel manual states our employees are "at will". In addition, our manual says that employees serve a probationary period. Do these two things conflict with each other?

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  • [font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-05-03 AT 01:19PM (CST)[/font][p]They could.

    If "probationary" isn't defined in your personnel manual so that the employee knows that even after passing a probation period, he or she is still at will.

    Courts without any clarifying statments defining or explaining "probation" could most likely take it to mean that passing probation gives the empolyee some right to the job which may only be taken away good cause. They will see that probation from the status that occurs after the end of probation.

    I suggest the word "probation" be changed to "an introductory period" or "orientation period."
  • That's correct- the term "probationary" has special meanings and should not be used in discipline or initial employment language.
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