101–110 of 201 posts
From reading the comments, people must work at places who use a lot of PIPs. It is an actual documented process at my large employer but I know if anyone got put on one then they would freak out. Probably go nuclear rather than improve. Managers are afraid to put people on them.
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As someone who has been in that situation, it's better than "your performance is shit, you're fired". In my case a large part of the problem was that I was not picking up on what should have been obvious cues. This provided a needed wake up call, and prompted me to improve.
So poor management. A manager's job is to provide their reports the tools they need to do their job, and key to that is not 'obvious cues' but explicitly stated expectations. Basically the manager didn't manage and substituted a PIP for what they should have been doing all along.
There is nothing to hate here. I have given numerous PIP's as a manager and only actually fired once. The purpose of a PIP is to improve, not to fire a person.
How on earth can you be a good manager and not realize that saying "your performance is shit, we're going to fire you unless you take this course and we deem you've passed" is totally and utterly soul destroying to a person?
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How on earth can you be a good manager and not realize that saying "your performance is shit, we're going to fire you unless you take this course and we deem you've passed" is totally and utterly soul destroying to a person?
As someone who has been in that situation, it's better than "your performance is shit, you're fired". In my case a large part of the problem was that I was not picking up on what should have been obvious cues. This provided a needed wake up call, and prompted me to improve.
Performance feedback should not come in the form of cues. If it does, it is poor management.
There is nothing to hate here. I have given numerous PIP's as a manager and only actually fired once. The purpose of a PIP is to improve, not to fire a person.
I’ve never heard anyone brag about giving working PIPs. PIPs are pretty demoralizing even if they “work”. Maybe you should consider giving people feedback in non-PIP form!
There is nothing to hate here. I have given numerous PIP's as a manager and only actually fired once. The purpose of a PIP is to improve, not to fire a person.
The company you worked for that allowed you to operate this way is in the minority. For 99% of companies the PIP is a documentation and CYA step to ensure that the employee goes away quietly, without things like filing for unemployment or suing the company. For most companies the purpose of a PIP is to fire a person.
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An even better token of respect is to just can the person and give them a respectable severance package, so they have months (plural) to find their next thing.
Don't see how that's strictly better since the person loses out on potential feedback from the PIP vs straight firing. PIP also doesn't prevent someone from getting severance, firing is firing.
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How on earth can you be a good manager and not realize that saying "your performance is shit, we're going to fire you unless you take this course and we deem you've passed" is totally and utterly soul destroying to a person?
What’s the alternative? Give them a rainbow sticker? It’s business among adults, performance matters. If you can’t meet expectations then it’s not a good fit. That’s part of life.
I saw this happen at Apple to an engineer on my team — maybe 8 to 10 years ago. Yeah, it did look like the die was already cast, they just wanted perhaps a lawsuit-proof way of showing them the door.
Was it justified or was your colleague wronged?
I imagine he'd have flourished if work-from-home had been a thing then.
I'm pretty happy with how PIPs work. The first and last time I was put on a PIP I went into early retirement the next day. In doing so, I caught the VP Eng who did the PIP completely flat footed. It turns out they did the PIP against the advice of their boss, the CTO. Egg all over the VP's face. The VP got canned 6 months after that and had to scramble to find another job while I was at the beach.