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I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

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Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#361
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I've seen plenty of very capable people put very little to no effort into their work.

If Amazon's only management stick is to mark 30% underperforms & cull 6% every year, then they need to send their managers to manager school.

This is not on the managers. This is HR gone wild. Most managers close to the frontline understand perfectly well what an incredibly stupid idea this is.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it was that the manager was being pressured to PIP a certain percentage of people, and instead pushed back really hard to retain this person because they wanted to retain them instead. Before spending their political capital, they asked the employee if they were committed to the long haul. In the end, they went to bat for the author and then ended up in the same place. They could have just PIP'd them with a lot…

If that were the case you wouldn’t even mention it to the person or strip them of their direct reports

Yeah. I read that as the manager taking away their ability to beat the PIP under the guise of “focus.”

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing about fat that I think is overlooked is how fat today might be muscle tomorrow, and how little companies try to convert it. Maybe a person is in a bad role, on a bad team, or simply doesn't have experience or skills fitting the specific requirements of that single point in time. I've been a high performer in the past. Now I'm a low performer (I'm slow) after the company has changed the way it treats teams/w…

Agreed that what is left unsaid in a lot of performance conversations is the person-role match. Someone isn't a high/low performer globally, just at that time in that role. Wall St firms I have worked at typically try to find different roles for people before marking them as at risk of a layoff. Not sure FAANG behaves the same, but from all these PIP discussions it seems not.

I left a company years ago because I didn't feel I was a good fit for the team/project - skills/goals/etc. But wasn't allowed to leave because it would hurt the image of the team to be seen to have people leaving it for other teams. But... apparently, leaving the company altogether doesn't affect the image (and yes... I've left the team, and people internally knew why, so... how does it really save face?)

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should file for disability accommodations. That is completely legal to ask. Sometimes you need to back it up with documentation, but i suspect that won't be a problem. They can't discriminate against you for this.

They can discriminate against you. They just need to make sure it's not obviously discrimination.

Yeah, that was a risk I was willing to take by disclosing my disability. So far it doesn't seem like it made anything worse, but it hasn't made anything better either.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#365

My perspective: I was your everyday ordinary CRUD developer in 2020 with leading a few projects under my belt at mostly unknown companies who had two years of AWS experience and was 46 years old. A recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me on LinkedIn about interviewing for a software engineering position. At 46 years old there were a number of problems I saw with that “opportunity”: - I hadn’t done a real codin…

Yep, Assuming you will be fired eventually and will have to fall back to a normal CRUD job is the right play when taking these high pressure, high salary roles. Any idea why you were PIPed after 3 years?

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Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#366

Do managers get PIPed too? I've only ever seen regular devs get PIPed

Yes, managers do. This article is about a manager who got PIPed. From the article, "So my manager took away all my direct reports, and shoved me into a small box, and said you could do this and try to work yourself out of it."

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#367

Although I think mandatory rankings and assuming the bottom x% should be exited isn’t great approach, I also don’t think it’s a company or managers job to coach you into being a productive employee. Yes, they should have direct feedback but overall you are expected to be a professional. This means you are accountable for your work - you do what you say you will. That you express concern early and not late in the proc…

I know you are getting downvoted but the real question is: What is a manager's job? If it is not to code, not to understand systems, not to design, not to coach, not to help the team - what is it exactly?

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing about fat that I think is overlooked is how fat today might be muscle tomorrow, and how little companies try to convert it. Maybe a person is in a bad role, on a bad team, or simply doesn't have experience or skills fitting the specific requirements of that single point in time. I've been a high performer in the past. Now I'm a low performer (I'm slow) after the company has changed the way it treats teams/w…

Agreed that what is left unsaid in a lot of performance conversations is the person-role match. Someone isn't a high/low performer globally, just at that time in that role. Wall St firms I have worked at typically try to find different roles for people before marking them as at risk of a layoff. Not sure FAANG behaves the same, but from all these PIP discussions it seems not.

Leadership was asked why not find new roles for people getting laid off due to project cancellations at a time when we were still hiring like crazy in the immediate run-up and aftermath. The response was “we need to move fast.”

They encouraged those laid off to apply for open roles. But of course it read to employees as a monumental “fuck you.”

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#369
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you told them clearly about the behaviors and you need to start a PIP, I assume you took a few weeks to tell them and waited at least a few more weeks until you started the PIP, and if the behavior kept going for all this time, again, I can't see how the PIP will help anything other than being "this is what we do before we fire someone".

The PIP does two important things: 1. Raises the stakes 2. Involves a 3rd party (yes, yes, we can argue that HR is not your friend, etc.), which _can_ help with the trust (it's not just you & me anymore, you not knowing how I twist my story of you) I get all the skepticism. I simply have different experience.

Yes I agree it does does 2 things, but remember my argument was to qualify that in the cases I mentioned I didn't think a PIP was passable. It doesn't mean you don't still have to do it, and yes, I guess in some extreme cases this raising of the stakes could be the thing that finally makes it "click" for the person that this is important. I just have seen enough PIPs and their pass-rates over a few years that I doubt them as a practical tool to actually get people to pass it. If that was the point companies wouldn't come up with a process with such a low pass-rate and would always be working to tweak the PIP process to increase pass-rates. Of course you might have different experience than this and I'll probably also change my mind if I see different outcomes in other contexts later on in life.

Re: I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, Assuming you will be fired eventually and will have to fall back to a normal CRUD job is the right play when taking these high pressure, high salary roles. Any idea why you were PIPed after 3 years?

I was peripherally involved in a project that was going sideways and I was an easy target. In hindsight, while the reason for me to put “on focus”, I honestly admit was maybe 70% my fault. I could have handled a horrible customer better. On the other hand, the PIP itself was a setup. During the focus period, I met all of the criteria and had perfect CSAT scores on two customer projects I led (Professional Services) a…

Were you close to vest your stock options?
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