This week Fast Company published an article about employee performance improvement plans (PIPs). A PIP is a structured plan that is developed by the employer for an under-performing employee. In general, a PIP (a) outlines specific areas where the employee is failing to perform satisfactorily, (b) states concrete improvements that the employer expects to see by a stated date in the future, (c) outlines how frequently the employer will meet with the employee going forward to assess the employee’s progress against those expected improvements, and (d) explains the consequences to the employee if the employee fails to meet the employer’s expectations. In most cases, the employer presents the employee with the PIP and asks the employee to read and sign it. A copy of the signed PIP is usually placed in the employee’s personnel file following the initial meeting. Then, the employee returns to work sets out to demonstrate that they can meet the employer’s expectations.
In the Fast Company article, author Alyse Maguire discusses what employees should do when given a PIP. She argues that, in some cases, PIPs can be beneficial because they are intended to truly help the employee understand and address their performance problems. In these cases, the PIP is the formal commencement of a mentoring process between employer and employee that ends in a better trained, more mature, and more productive employee. However, in other cases, a PIP is not intended to be constructive at all because the employer has already decided to terminate the employee. In these cases, the PIP is nothing more than the beginning of the termination process. Going through a PIP allows the employer to claim that they made an effort to help the employee improve. It also gives the employer some new, negative documentation to put into the employee’s personnel file, which comes in handy for the employer if the employee later decides to sue.
PIPs can be an effective management tool when properly implemented. If you have questions, contact your employment lawyer for advice.
You can find the full link to the Fast Company article here.
Forbes recently released an article on how to create a PIP. You can find that article here.
