30 60 90 Day Plan

What a 30 60 90 day plan is

A 30 60 90 day plan is a document written for one employee as they start in a new role. It sets out what they are expected to achieve within their first thirty days, then within their first sixty, and then within their first ninety.

The plan is an administrative arrangement that the organisation sets for itself, and it does not stand in for anything the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) regulates. Matters of the contract, its periods and its ending are governed by the Labor Law and by the documented employment contract, and the plan settles none of them.

In the sources we reviewed, we found no measurement on which to base a claim about the plan’s effect on whether an employee stays, or on their performance after the first year. So we state neither that it improves them nor that it does not.

Why a 30 60 90 day plan has three stages, not one

A new role is learned in stages, and mixing the stages up can produce a poor start: an employee asked to deliver before they understand, or left to understand for three months without delivering anything.

• The first thirty days: understanding. Who the stakeholders are, how the work actually gets done, where information is kept, and which measures the role is held to.
• By day sixty: taking part. Taking on real tasks under supervision, and proposing a first improvement based on what the employee has seen, not on what they were used to at their previous organisation.
• By day ninety: independence. Running the scope of the role without daily supervision, with at least one output completed by the employee.

The value lies in the order of the stages, not in the number of days. A plan that turns the three stages into equal task lists is an agenda with new headings.

The split into 30, 60 and 90 days is a management convention. In the sources we reviewed, we found no basis for saying that it is the best split, or that it suits every role. What is described above is an order of stages, not a recommended length of time.

Where a 30 60 90 day plan sits against the probation period

Where the contract provides for probation, the ninety days of the plan can fall inside the probation period, and Article 53 of the Labor Law, with all of its conditions, governs anything built on that overlap. Under Article 53 of the Labor Law, a probation period exists only where the employment contract stipulates it expressly, and the stipulation is not enough unless the contract also specifies its duration. Article 53 of the Labor Law sets a total that may not exceed 180 days in any case, and either party may end the contract during the period.

Article 19(2) of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) excludes four kinds of leave from the count of the probation period: the Eid al Fitr and Eid al Adha holidays, the National Day holiday, the Founding Day holiday, and sick leave. A count that keeps only three of them, dropping National Day and Founding Day, treats two excluded holidays as probation days and so places the end of the period earlier than it actually falls. A decision that rests on the probation period is then taken by someone who believes less of the period remains than in fact remains.

Article 19(1) of the Implementing Regulation allows the probation period to be split into several periods, on two conditions that must both be met: the periods are consecutive, and the split is stated clearly when the employment contract is concluded, not afterwards. A split does not raise the ceiling, and under Article 53 of the Labor Law the periods together stay within 180 days.

Article 54 of the Labor Law governs what may not be repeated: a worker may not be placed on probation more than once with the same employer. By written agreement of both parties, Article 54 of the Labor Law allows two exceptions: the further probation is for another profession or another job, or at least six months have passed since the previous relationship between the two parties ended. Where the contract is ended during probation, Article 54 of the Labor Law gives neither party compensation for that ending, and the worker earns no end of service award for that period.

In the sources we reviewed, we found nothing that makes reaching or missing a stage of a 30 60 90 day plan, by itself, a statutory ground for a decision on the contract. The practical consequence for the person writing the plan is this: any decision that rests on the probation period is taken inside that period, not after it, so the plan’s reviews are scheduled to come before the end of the period rather than to coincide with it.

The four excluded kinds of leave are settled by Article 19(2) of the Implementing Regulation, as set out above. The remaining detail that Article 53 of the Labor Law leaves to the regulation has its own sources, and we do not set it out. Whether the signed contract carries the stipulation is checked on the contract itself, and what a contract has to contain is covered in our guide to the requirements of a Saudi employment contract.

Counting a 30 60 90 day plan on a real calendar

An error that can arise in a 30 60 90 day plan is arithmetic, not drafting: the stages are written as numbers of days and then counted as months, so day ninety falls somewhere other than where the writer assumed. The example below is hypothetical. Its purpose is to show the count, not to set a duration.

An employee starts work on 1 January of a year that is not a leap year, and the contract provides for a probation period of 90 days. January has 31 days, February 28 and March 31. Counting the start date as the first day:

• Day 30 falls on 30 January.
• Day 60: by the end of February, 31 plus 28, or 59 days, have passed, so day 60 falls on 1 March.
• Day 90: 31 plus 28 plus 31 is 90, so day 90 falls on 31 March.

Those are calendar days, but the probation period is counted differently. Founding Day, a holiday of one day on 22 February, falls inside this window and does not count towards probation. So the 90 days of probation end on 1 April at the earliest, and later still if an Eid holiday or sick leave also falls inside them.

The result is that the review of the plan’s third stage lands at the very end of the probation period, with too little time left after it in which to take a decision. A writer who wants a workable window can place the decisive review on day 75, which is 16 March on the same count, leaving a little over two weeks before the period ends.

Had the contract set the probation period at the ceiling of 180 days, the 180th calendar day would fall on 29 June on the same count: 151 days have passed by the end of May, and 29 more fall in June. The period itself would end later than that, for the same reason, since Founding Day falls inside it and an Eid holiday may as well. The three stages of the plan would then all fall in the first half of the period, with more than 90 days of it still to run after them. That is a difference of sequence, not of the plan’s content, but it decides when the plan’s result is assessed.

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 53 (when a probation period exists, its ceiling, and ending the contract during it) and Article 54 (one probation per employer, its two exceptions, and the effect of ending the contract during probation). Article 19 of the Implementing Regulation, in the edition in force from 19 February 2025, was relied on for the excluded leave and for splitting the period. Royal Decree M/44, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Article 53 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Article 54 of the Labor Law.

How a 30 60 90 day plan differs from a performance improvement plan

The two documents look alike but start from opposite causes, and confusing them damages both:

• A performance improvement plan starts from an existing performance gap and addresses it. It holds only where there is a defined gap, a measurable required level (the kind of written level that performance standards set out), a set duration, and a commitment from the organisation.
• A 30 60 90 day plan starts from nothing. It has no gap at all, because the employee has not yet done the work.

If a 30 60 90 day plan is used to put pressure on a new employee, it has become a performance improvement plan written before there was anything to improve.

Other documents a 30 60 90 day plan is confused with

The confusion with a performance improvement plan is easy to see. A quieter one arises when the plan is written and it then emerges that what it contains already existed at the organisation, in a different document:

• The job description. It describes the role in permanent terms that do not change when the holder changes, whereas the plan describes a temporary passage for one person that ends when the ninety days end. Copying the job description’s responsibilities into the three stages does not produce a plan; it spreads a fixed description across three dates.
• The onboarding programme. It is a procedure the organisation runs for everyone who joins, in the same order, whereas the plan is written for one employee around the outputs of their role. The two run at the same time in the first weeks, and neither replaces the other. Employee onboarding handles the schedule for the organisation as a whole, and the plan handles it for one employee. Handing an employee an onboarding schedule and calling it a plan gives them what they are welcomed with, not what they are measured against.
• Annual performance objectives. They follow the organisation’s appraisal cycle and its dates, whereas the plan follows the employee’s start date. An employee who starts a month before the cycle closes falls under both documents, on different dates. That case is settled in writing, not by assumption: the organisation writes down which outputs the plan carries and which are deferred to the next cycle.

When a 30 60 90 day plan needs a different shape

The order of understanding, then taking part, then independence is built on one case: an employee who is new to the organisation and to the role at the same time. Where either half of that description does not hold, the order changes with it:

• An internal promotion. It brings an employee who knows the organisation but not the role. The understanding stage is not dropped, but its subject changes: it is spent not on learning where information is kept, but on learning what has changed in the employee’s relationship with the people who were their colleagues.
• A newly created role. It has no predecessor to ask and no existing measure to hold the role to. The right output for the first stage is then a proposal for those measures. Asking the holder for a measured result in the first thirty days asks for a measurement against a measure that does not yet exist.
• A leadership role that inherits an existing team. Its first stage is larger by nature, because what has to be understood is not a procedure but people and the history between them. A change made early, before that understanding, can be reversed later.
• Remote work. It takes away the contact that an office supplies by chance; at a distance, that contact happens only when an appointment is written down. The meetings that would otherwise have happened on their own are therefore scheduled; without them, the first thirty days can end with an incomplete understanding that nobody is aware of.
• A contract shorter than ninety days. It calls for the document to be rewritten with two stages or with one, not cut down to fit three, because an independence stage that falls after the work has ended is not a stage.

What goes into a 30 60 90 day plan

• Outputs, not activities. “I met five clients” is an activity; “I came away with a ranked list of the causes of delay” is an output.
• One or two objectives for each stage, written as SMART goals so that whether they were reached is clear without argument.
• What the organisation provides in return. Who opens doors for the employee, and which permissions and tools reach them on which day.
• Review dates. They are best placed in the regular one to one meeting with the line manager, not in a special meeting arranged for the purpose.
• Who answers the small questions. A buddy system meets this need, because a new employee has a kind of question that they do not put to their manager.

What undermines a 30 60 90 day plan

• Copying a template without deriving the outputs from the role itself. The plan becomes generic, suited to any job, which means suited to none.
• Loading the first stage with delivery. The employee then builds on an incomplete understanding and later has to correct what they built.
• Writing the plan and leaving it until day ninety. Without two reviews along the way, the plan becomes a report that arrives too late.
• Changing the role without changing the plan. A result is then measured against an expectation that no longer stands.
• Keeping the plan with the employee alone. If the manager moves on, no trace of the stages remains with anyone else. A copy held in the employee file does not depend on either of them.

Who writes a 30 60 90 day plan

The plan is written by the manager and the employee together, not by either of them alone. A manager writing alone sets expectations the employee cannot see a way to reach, and an employee writing alone writes down what they can do, not what the role needs.

A candidate who is asked to bring a plan before being hired writes it from outside the organisation, with incomplete information. Its value at that stage is in showing how the candidate thinks, not in being a plan fit to carry out.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.

Related terms

• Employee Onboarding
• Performance Standards
• Employee File
• Realistic Job Preview
• Competencies