Performance Improvement Plans

Is this a second chance or your boss just managing you out the door?

You better not try to stand in my way
As I'm walkin' out the door
Take this job and shove it
I ain't workin' here no more
Take This Job And Shove It, Johnny Paycheck

Not this PIP-boy, thankfully…

Not long ago, The Stern Golum - who I enjoy reading, and who you may otherwise find entertaining - wrote a piece called What Is Up With PIPs? about his experience with being placed on a Performance Improvement Plan by the consulting firm he was working for.

He lamented how this seemed a very one-sided experience, and despite being pitched as a plan by which he could improve performance and retain his job - which he was keen to do - it seemed to him that the function of the PIP was actually nothing of the sort. The impression I got from reading his Substack article - and from subsequent discussion from him separately - was that this was just a cover-your-ass document and that the human resources personnel managing the PIP were basically there to see to it that he was quietly ushered out the door at the end of it.

As someone with a few battle scars over the years, and having been at both employee and management sides of the table, I wanted to offer some critique: because it is hard to actually come back successfully from a PIP - but it is extremely difficult to do so if you are doing so naively.

Performance improvement plans - rarely are. They're generally manage-you-out-the-door plans. You are not likely to be told how to make them work for you or how to comply “correctly” with them, and the company is likely putting things on paper in order to have some quantifiable metrics they can point at for letting you go in case you contest an immediate discharge. Most typically this is “We gave him a second chance with this performance improvement plan, and he didn't do X and Y so we had to let him go anyway.”

The key things from your perspective as an employee if you want to keep the job: make sure you understand the PIP thoroughly and especially specific performance issues, goals, timelines, and metrics for success. Whatever the issues you need to address and the goals that you need to hit are generally the most important bits here. You need to show improvement against those targets early on, demonstrate effort, and make sure to document that - these goals and your progress need to be something quantifiable (not just vibes) and actually tracked. Provide those progress updates regularly to whoever the “stakeholders” are in your PIP - generally your boss and HR - cover the wins, ask for clarification and if any trouble spots come up propose a solution so that you look like you're not just throwing up your hands and seeming helpless.

You do have more protection than you might think in a PIP - as an employee you can request reasonable accommodation under whatever disability or similar protective laws exist on a state or federal basis. Clearly this doesn’t apply directly to the discussion for Australia, but under laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or equivalent regulations, employers must consider whether performance issues stem from a disability. If so, they may need to provide reasonable accommodations (e.g., modified work schedules, assistive technology) before or during a PIP. Employers should engage in an interactive process with the employee to identify accommodations, documenting these efforts to show compliance - and HR is likely to bend over backwards to do so if you make a point about it, because that’s an enormous legal hairball in any sort of termination-of-employment situation.

If you think you’re being singled out - and I realize everyone thinks that to a certain extent, but more to the point, if you can document that - then this is one of those edge cases where a PIP is likely to generate a quiet settlement offer from a company rather than a swift brush-out the door. You see, PIPs must be applied consistently across employees with similar roles and performance issues. Inconsistent application (e.g., only certain employees receiving PIPs for similar infractions) can lead to claims of discrimination or unfair treatment. There’s a general category termed “policy adherence” - basically, the PIP process should align with the company’s documented performance management policies, as outlined in employee handbooks or contracts. Deviations can weaken the employer’s legal position. If employee handbooks or contracts show your behavior as correct - especially if it’s also correct for other employees, but only being enforced against you - documenting that is probably going to get the company to either drop the PIP and shuffle you off to a different branch office, or perhaps pay you some quiet severance amount. (But it certainly won’t make you friends.) Usually there are also some protections in place, legally, for things like reporting discrimination, whistleblowing, taking legally entitled leave (eg the Family and Medical Leave Act) - and you may or may not have some additional leeway if you’re a protected class under the US Civil Rights Act or the UK Equality Act or similar legislation. Don’t actually count on a lot of extra wiggle room there, though - generally what being in a protected class buys you is the right to the PIP and the “turnaround window” instead of a swifter discharge in the case of layoffs or firings.

A great deal of the difficulty here is that the knowledge situation is asymmetrical - the human resources group is likely to know exactly what needs to be said, done, and documented, whereas you as the flustered employee being written up are likely to be very much on the back foot. HR will have done this before, and have been trained in how to do it properly, and what to say and not say - and odds are you will have absolutely none of those advantages. And even a very compassionate human resources team is not going to tell you how to navigate it successfully. You need an ally who can tell you how to do this, preferably before you sign the PIP. If you have a good union who can aid you in this - and caveat, most unions aren’t - they can potentially provide you with someone who will help you define and negotiate proper terminology for the PIP document. Or if you have a trusted ally in human resources from another firm or from elsewhere in your professional network - owe them a favor or be outright transactional for their aid here, because this is their area of expertise. Probably the most important thing any human resources person will help guide you to is that PIP goals must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (Yes, I’m sure they chose those specifically because that makes the acronym SMART - that seems a very HR buzzwordy sort of thing, doesn’t it?) Vague or unattainable goals can be challenged as setting the employee up for failure, potentially leading to wrongful termination claims. And if you know that going in, and even say so up front (or with a quick conversation with your HR mentor) you’ll convey a conversance with the topic that will probably put you on a much more even playing field. You may also want to quietly ask an employment attorney. Of course, if you bring an employment attorney to these negotiations, it tends to put people in a very different mindset, and everyone becomes very stiff and formal. I’m not saying not to lawyer up - there are absolutely times that’s the correct answer - but it definitely makes things adversarial and it’s unlikely your company will have warm fuzzies about you afterwards.

And, having said all that: assume your employer is probably trying to manage you out anyway. Update your resume, circulate it quietly, if you find a better opportunity don't be afraid to take the strong hint that they're giving you that the grass is greener elsewhere.