N.J.A.C. 4A:4-5 Working Test Period
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:4-5, Working Test Period: 5 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:4-5.1General provisions
The working test period is formally part of the examination, not a separate probation bolted onto the end of hiring. That framing is the reason it exists: it lets the appointing authority find out whether you can actually do the job before the appointment becomes permanent. Every regular appointment to a career service title carries one, with four exceptions. Appointments from special, police, sheriff officer, fire and regular reemployment lists are exempt. So are appointments to a comparable or lower related title in lieu of layoff, and appointments to a title you already held permanently within your current continuous service. Lateral title changes are handled separately. During the period you perform the duties of the title you were appointed to.
- 4A:4-5.2Duration
How long it lasts, and when the clock starts. It starts on the date of regular appointment, and time served provisionally, temporarily, on an interim basis or under an emergency appointment does not count toward it. Somebody who worked provisionally in a title for two years begins their working test period at zero on the day they are regularly appointed. The length then splits by service. Local service is three months of active service and cannot be extended. State service is four months of active service, which the Chairperson or designee may extend by a further two months at the appointing authority request, and that request should reach Commission staff at least five working days before the four months are up. Active service is the operative phrase: time not actively worked does not tick the clock down.
- 4A:4-5.3Progress reports
You are entitled to see how it is going before it ends. The appointing authority has to write a progress report at the two month mark and a final report when the working test period concludes, and it has to give you a copy of every report. Where a State service period has been extended by two months there is an additional progress report at five months and a final report at the end of the extension. Entry level law enforcement, correction officer, correctional police officer and firefighter titles run on a longer cycle, with the progress report at six months and the final report at the conclusion. A missing progress report is worth raising at the time rather than after a termination, because the reports are the documentary record of the performance the decision rests on.
- 4A:4-5.4Working test period appeals
Forty two words that answer the question everybody in a working test period is asking, and then send them somewhere else for the part that matters. Yes, you can be separated for unsatisfactory performance at the end of the working test period. And yes, you can also be disciplined during it, which is a different thing on a different track. The appeal routes are the point, and neither is described here. Separation at the end of the period is appealed under 4A:2-4, which sets a 20-day deadline and puts the burden on you to prove bad faith. Discipline during the period runs under 4A:2-2 for major discipline and 4A:2-3 for minor. Read those before relying on this one.
- 4A:4-5.5Restoration to eligible list or former title
Losing a working test period does not have to mean losing the list. An employee who resigns in good standing, or is separated for unsatisfactory performance, may ask to be put back on an eligible list, and the Chairperson or designee restores them if they are suitable for appointment to another position. What gets weighed is whether the list can be certified to a different appointing authority, what the former appointing authority recommends, and anything else relevant. Two hard limits. Anybody removed for disciplinary reasons is not restored at all, which is a real distinction between being let go for performance and being disciplined out. And if you have appealed under 4A:2-4, the restoration request waits until the appeal is decided rather than running alongside it.