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Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

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Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#31

Post by MarkMarine »

teraflop wrote: post #27
cajunboi34213 wrote: post #22

Get some documentation that proves this. Hire a lawyer. Go to HR. Get a settlement...

This is sarcasm, right? If not: in general, in the US, it's perfectly legal for a company to just arbitrarily decide they need to fire N people, and arbitrarily choose a particular person to fire meet that "quota". This is true regardless of how many layers of managers are involved, or what bullshit PIP hoops are jumped through. There would only be a legal issue if the worker was subject to a bona-fife employment con…

There are legal requirements around doing layoffs. A quota of PIPs is a stealth layoff. I’d say OP has a point.

Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#32

Post by passwordoops »

aprdm wrote: post #28
ablatt89 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PIPs are used as tools to lay people off or get revenge often. It's not meant to be an actual "performance improvement plan." There's many stories of people hitting all requirements within the PIP to still not hit "the bar" due to a constantly arbitrary and changing PIP requirement. PIP is often a cowardice way to do layoffs or for upper management to not admit they have too many resources allocated for their own del…

In my experience, having PIP'd people, that's hasn't ever been the case. It's never fun for the manager or the person or the company. In 3/4 of the cases they passed with flying colours and both sides were glad we went through it.

I think it really depends on the place. I was PIP'd recently and genuinely thought I was doing something wrong, until it was clear the bar kept moving even though I was meeting all requirements. A few weeks in I discovered I wasn't the only one in that situation (4 others, all expensive senior employees) and the company had a history of using arbitrary PIPs to justify firing with cause instead of having to pay out severance (I'm in Canada)

Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#33

Post by freeopinion »

There are many businesses that could not define a PIP because they have no idea how to define performance. You can find one of these and hide for the rest of your career. If your PIP has milestones like 'write 10 emails per day' or 'participate in 10 hours of meetings per week', maybe you already found one of those companies. If you yourself struggle to define what 'performance' means in your job, isn't that a red flag all by itself? You can use this as an opportunity to understand the expectations of your employer (or at least your employer's agents). Or you can take this as a final confirmation that you are not achieving any personal fulfillment in this job. If you have to ask strangers, I sense you are quite lost in your current job.

Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#35

Post by dekhn »

JohnFen wrote: post #34

Leave. Leave now. Don't look back. There is nothing good to be had by staying.

Disagree- you should stay until they fire you, collecting salary in the meantime while not working (except to study for a new job). It's basically getting paid not to work and they've already established you have until the end of the pip period.

Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#36

Post by nickthegreek »

fourseventy wrote: post #16
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone on blind knows what PIP means

Well the only pip I know is the python package manager and this story is posted on HN, so a lot of people are going to be in the same boat

The submitted followed the HN title guidelines to not change titles. HN Titles have a character limit and are not the spot to start to define terms. Sometimes in life, you got to learn stuff yourself. Just for giggles, I googled 'what is a pip' and it was defined as the first result.

Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#38

Post by JohnFen »

dekhn wrote: post #35
JohnFen wrote: post #34

Leave. Leave now. Don't look back. There is nothing good to be had by staying.

Disagree- you should stay until they fire you, collecting salary in the meantime while not working (except to study for a new job). It's basically getting paid not to work and they've already established you have until the end of the pip period.

Well, I'll backtrack a little. It depends on what your priorities are, I suppose. I'd rather not have to explain being fired to a potential employer, and no salary would be worth staying where I'm not wanted.

But others may legitimately have other priorities.

Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#39

Post by dekhn »

JohnFen wrote: post #38
dekhn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree- you should stay until they fire you, collecting salary in the meantime while not working (except to study for a new job). It's basically getting paid not to work and they've already established you have until the end of the pip period.

Well, I'll backtrack a little. It depends on what your priorities are, I suppose. I'd rather not have to explain being fired to a potential employer, and no salary would be worth staying where I'm not wanted. But others may legitimately have other priorities.

Firing versus resignation makes no real difference.

It's easy to stay where you're not wanted- don't go to the office, don't answer email, don't do any real work. It's basically garden leave.

Re: Stay or Leave: Manager Admitted I am on PIP because quota

#40

Post by JohnFen »

aprdm wrote: post #28
ablatt89 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PIPs are used as tools to lay people off or get revenge often. It's not meant to be an actual "performance improvement plan." There's many stories of people hitting all requirements within the PIP to still not hit "the bar" due to a constantly arbitrary and changing PIP requirement. PIP is often a cowardice way to do layoffs or for upper management to not admit they have too many resources allocated for their own del…

In my experience, having PIP'd people, that's hasn't ever been the case. It's never fun for the manager or the person or the company. In 3/4 of the cases they passed with flying colours and both sides were glad we went through it.

Interesting.

I'm never been PIP'd myself, but I've seen it happen to many -- and it's never resulted in anything good, nor has it ever seemed as if the purpose was actually to improve anyone's performance. It's usually seems like just a thing that has to be done before you can fire them. Even when the PIP'd employee isn't fired, the PIP remains a scarlet letter on them for the rest of their time at that company.

I'm glad there are companies where this isn't the case! I wonder how common those are.

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