Qfyilyi

I am a new manager and I recently hired a new engineer. My boss’s philosophy is to really push people to achieve ambitious milestones in their first 90 days. He thinks a new hire should really want to prove themselves, even if that means working extra hours. I am being encouraged to assign a very ambitious workload to my new employee and put some pressure on him to meet an ambitious deadline. Is this a good idea?

If you want to burn out a potential good employee then go ahead and be "ambitious". Don't be surprised if they resign or are ineffective due to burnout.

The problem with this approach is that the new employee doesn't know your organisation and doesn't know that the first 90 days are considered "special" by you.

What would you think if you started a new job and your workload was so big that it required you to work 11h/day?

Personally, I would think the organisation doesn't know what work-life balance is, can't plan well and/or misled me on purpose during the recruitment process and I would consider quitting unless I was paid much, much more than in other jobs.

Even if I didn't quit, this would influence my perception of the company. There are companies famous for working long hours. But when accepting an offer from there you know what you will get. I expect other companies to warn me during the recruitment process if they want me to work more than what I have in my work contract. This way I can take an informed decision whether it makes sense for me to work so much for the salary offered.

My boss’s philosophy is to really push people to achieve ambitious
milestones in their first 90 days.

... and the unspoken part is:

... and then we mentally set the productivity baseline for that employee by what they were able to achieve in the first 90 days.

I mean, it's already bad enough that you're giving the employee a terrible first impression of your company ("What? I just started here and you want me working 11 hours a day? Okay, back to the job hunt!") but this is extra messed up due to the anchoring bias.

Basically, it's human nature from that point on to judge the employee's productivity based on this initial datapoint. So not only did they kill themselves in the first 90 days, but they screwed themselves over for the rest of their career there.

Check out The Onboarding Checklist by Manager Tools. It‘s a free, multi-part podcast episode that tackles this exact question.

In short: Definitely no, your main focus should be making the employee as effective as possible as a part of the organization. They have already proven themselves by having been selected in a (hopefully rigorous) interview process.

I don’t work extra hours unless you pay. If it’s not important enough to pay me, then it’s not important. There are more employers out there for a good engineer, and I definitely won’t set any bad precedent in my first three months.

Tell your boss from me: Thanks, but no thanks.

If I were that employee and I would later find out that my superiors have been playing underhand tactics, I would be very concerned about the culture of this workplace and look to apply elsewhere.

You should at least report this concern to your boss, in addition to the risk of burning out a good new employee, which has been addressed in other answers.

If your boss doesn't heed your advise, you have to bite the bullet. Make a mental note, and if, on future occasions your boss proves generally resistant to good advise, start to look for a different job.

My boss’s philosophy is to really push people... in their first 90 days... I am being encouraged to assign a very ambitious workload to my new employee and put some pressure on him to meet an ambitious deadline.

Is this a good idea?

Not in my opinion.

Assuming you already believe you don't have a choice (like talking your boss out of this), I'd say that you are a new manager, and if you want to stay one you don't have much choice than to do what it appears you have been directly ordered to do.

I would tell the new hire, "My boss X really likes to give an opportunity for people to shine in their first 90 days, so I'm assigning you project Y at his recommendation. I will work closely with you and help you. I just want you to know it is a stretch project and not to get discouraged. It will be tough but we think you can do it."

At least that's what I hope I would do - I'm sure you can see some pitfalls in coming clean with the new person (like if they disclosed what you said it might reflect badly on new manager 'Jeff').