Employee probation in China has to be one of the most misunderstood issues in China employment law. Westerners just assume their probationary employees are at will employees who can be fired at any time, for good reason or for no reason at all. Wrong. The probation period is PART of the normal employment term and therefore pretty much all protections afforded to regular employees also apply to employees on probation as well. This period should really not even be called “probation” because it really isn’t. It was five and ten years ago, but no longer and your failure to realize this will be at your peril. Trust me.
Our China employment lawyers often are faced with situations like this: Employer hires an employee on January 1st with a two-month probation period. Employer then contacts us in late February to say it will be terminating the employee before the employee’s probation period runs out so it can avoid paying statutory severance. The employer’s reason for the termination is that the employee is “just not all that good” and they believe they “can do better.” The employee neither failed to follow employer directions nor did he or she fail to possess the qualifications required for his or her position. In other words, the employer has NO legal basis for terminating the employee. So with the probation period now coming to an end, can the employer go ahead with its planned unilateral termination without having to pay severance? Probably not.
The employer is shocked when we tell them that if they go ahead with the unilateral termination, they will be at risk of being sued for an unlawful termination. China is not an employment-at-will jurisdiction and the probation period is not an exception to this general rule. An employee termination during the probation period requires a legally permissible ground and except for the limited number of grounds permitted under the law, an employee on probation cannot be unilaterally terminated. If this sounds familiar, it should. Because if you replace the italicized parts with “during the employment term” you get the most fundamental rule of China’s employment law: a China employee cannot be unilaterally terminated without cause.
So under what grounds can an employer terminate an employee on probation?
Article 39 of the PRC Labor Contract Law provides that an employee on probation may be terminated with no severance for one of the following six reasons:
1. The employee is proven to have failed to satisfy the conditions of employment during the probation period;
2. The employee materially breaches labor disciplines or the employer’s rules and regulations;
3. The employee commits a serious dereliction of duty or practices graft, causing substantial damage to the employer;
4. The employee has established an employment relationship with another employer which materially affects the completion of her tasks with the employer, or she refuses to terminate such employment relationship with the other employer, after she is required to do so by the employer;
5. The employee uses deception or coercion, or takes advantage of the employer’s difficulties to cause the employer to conclude the contract, or to make an amendment thereto, that is contrary to that party’s true intent;
6. The employee has criminal liability imposed in accordance with the law.
Under Articles 40(1) and 40(2) of the Labor Contract Law, an employee on probation may also be terminated if:
1. He or she has fallen ill or sustained a non-work related injury and, at the end of the medical treatment period, can neither engage in the original work nor in other work arranged by the employer;
2. He or she is incompetent and remains incompetent after training or assignment to another post.
That’s it. No law allows an employer to terminate an employee on probation for whatever reason the employer wishes (or for no reason at all) simply because the employee is on probation.
In addition, Article 21 of China’s Labor Contract Law clearly states that when an employer terminates an employee during the probation period, the employer must provide the employee with reason(s) for such termination. It is critical that the employer convincingly document its terminations in writing — in Chinese. If the documentation setting forth the grounds for termination is not convincing, you will be giving your terminated employee incentive to challenge the termination and a good chance of prevailing against you in a labor arbitration proceeding. This is especially true when the employer is a WFOE because let’s face it, China is always going to favor a Chinese employee over a foreign-owned entity.
The most common ground for terminating an employee on probation is the first ground under Article 39; the employer can prove the employee on probation does not satisfy the conditions of employment. Note the wording though in Article 39. The employer must be able to prove that its employee failed to satisfy the employer’s conditions of employment. For the employer to be able to prove this, it must have specified such conditions/requirements in writing and it must communicate those conditions to the employee beforehand. Though some courts will consider the general requirements in an employee’s specific industry as conditions of employment, most courts will not. What this means is that the smart employer has a clear writing setting out its probationary employee’s conditions of employment and if a termination becomes necessary, another clear writing documenting exactly how the employee failed to meet those conditions.
What then is the difference between a probation period and a normal employment term? Not much, actually. If an employer can prove any of the above grounds for termination exits, it can terminate the employee during the probation period without having to pay severance. Or the employer can wait until the end of its initial fixed term and not renew the contract but pay severance to the employee.
What then should you as an employer in China do? The best way to proceed is usually to specify the employment requirements in your employment contracts or in a separate agreement/document (in Chinese!) and preserve good evidence of how your employee fails to meet those requirements. If you as an employer want to be able to fully take advantage of the probation period, you should set out the conditions of employment in writing and provide those to the employee for review and sign off before the employment relationship commences. And then, as discussed above, if you find yourself wanting to terminate that probationary employee, you should give the employee a reason beyond telling them that “you are fired because you are still on probation.”
Few WFOEs seem to understand these rules and even fewer seem to get them right. Many try to manage their China-based employees from afar in a foreign (especially U.S.) style that does not work for China, without China-centric employment contracts or China-centric employer rules and regulations. These WFOE employers consistently fail to maintain records of employee behaviors/performances in a way they can later use in their favor in an employment dispute.
China employment cases are rife with examples of foreign employers that lost and lost big because they did not understand employee probation periods. Chinese employees know this and they are quick to sue when terminated during their probation period.
In a fairly recent case in Shanghai (which is actually more pro-employer than most cities in China), a foreign employer sought to have the court overturn a labor arbitration ruling finding the employee had been wrongfully terminated during the probation period. The employer argued that the employee was emotional at work, had on many occasions read magazines unrelated to work, and did not possess the professional skills expected for the job. The employer also argued the employee failed to pass his evaluations during the probation period. The Second Intermediate People’s Court rejected the employer’s arguments, noting that the employer failed to put forth any real evidence to prove an evaluation of this employee had actually occurred and it ordered the employer to pay damages to its former employee for unlawful termination of the employment contract.
Because employers in China must prove the grounds of termination even during a probation period and because there is no legal basis for unilateral termination the safest way for an employer to terminate its probationary employees is via a mutual termination agreement. This usually involves the employer giving the terminated employee a small severance payment in exchange for the employee’s voluntary departure. This mutual termination agreement should be in Chinese and it should include provisions making clear that the terminated employee is releasing the employer from any future claims. If the employee refuses to agree to such an agreement (this almost never happens), the employer essentially has the following two courses of action:
1. Inform the employee that he or she is being terminated, and then sit back and wait for a potential labor arbitration, or
2. Continue to employ the employee throughout the employment specified in the employee’s contract.
Can you extend the probation period? As is true of so much of China employment law, that depends on the locale. But this is not something you want to get wrong because in some locales, extending the probation period is just about the worst thing you can do. And keep in mind that even if your extending the probation period is legal, you as the employer still must prove cause for any eventual unilateral termination.
