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On being the employee who “needs improvement”

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Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#181

Post by crusso »

hydrogen18 wrote: post #63
crusso wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no circumstances in which it will turn around Note that you used the passive voice, as though the circumstances are completely out of the employee's control.

They are. Why anyone is willing to adopt the delusion that a "personal improvement plan" is about improving anything I cannot understand. The circumstances are far less severe and consequential, but I can only compare it to a political dissident in a totalitarian state being tortured so long that he eventually believes he was undermining some righteous, just society with his actions. You shouldn't take it as a person…

At this point, the decision was already made that you need to go

I've been a manager with HR in these kinds of conversations. At the point that we decide to put an employee on a PIP, it's because continuation of the current performance is unacceptable - not that the particular employe "must go", just the current behavior. We typically have lots of other employees performing at a higher level or with better attitudes, so it isn't just some random whim where we have it in for someone and are unwilling to allow for them to rectify the problem.

If the employee were to improve his or her performance (typically improve his or her attitude), as an employer we would be more than happy to continue that person's employment.

It's a defeatist attitude that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#182

Post by e40 »

kd5bjo wrote: post #82
e40 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't stress how good the above comment is at dealing with this. As a long time manager, people that behave this way are a total joy to manage. Also, if you have a smartphone and your company uses slack, there is no reason to be unreachable, unless you are in a deadzone of cell reception or driving. But, if you practice the above, it shouldn't be an issue. For example, a post to #OOO: hey, running an errand for the…

> if you have a smartphone... there is no reason to be unreachable It is totally fine to be unreachable nights and weekends[1] without providing notice to your employer; being able to detach from work completely from time to time is key to minimizing burnout risk, and what you do on your own time is none of their business. [1] With the exception of formalized support rotations, of course

I meant regular working hours.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#183

Post by nerdponx »

mulmen wrote: post #163
nerdponx wrote: post #158

I've been this person. I was not only somewhat surprised, I also felt betrayed. It was apparent that complaints had been building for some time, but I heard very little of those complaints in the form of direct feedback. It was only in hindsight that I realized my coworkers had been subtly dropping hints for a while. It sucked. Then again, I actually did kind of suck at my job, too. So maybe the real lesson here is t…

Sounds like your manager dropped the ball. Management makes the big bucks to avoid these situations, not pass blame to the people they fail. Firing an employee should reflect at least as badly on management as it does on the employee. Why did they hire you in the first place? Are their hiring policies broken? Why are you expected to read minds?

I've asked myself similar questions, and it's good to hear that they aren't unreasonable ones.

Readers might be interested to know that I actually made it through the PIP period and kept my job. When a wave of layoffs came, however, I was let go. I am sure that having been on the PIP contributed to their decision to cut me.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#184

Post by nerdponx »

tigershark wrote: post #8
blowski wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.

They are utterly and completely useless. You should speak with your boss continuously, regardless of the 1 on 1s. Maybe it's a coincidence but with all the worst bosses that I had we had 1 on 1s. It's just a way to hide their incompetence in my opinion.

Or unwillingness to hire enough headcount due to being "lean".

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#185

Post by dba7dba »

humanrebar wrote: post #5

I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look, we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better enough." In the story linked, it se…

This is very true in corporate America. They are NOT really interested in improving your work performance. They are simply starting the process of letting you go while building up the necessary paper trail to show employment lawyers (in case they show up) that the management did their best to try to help the employee improve performance but that it just didn't work out. They are just covering their butts.

So if you ever get called in for performance improvement meeting by your manager, you should just start looking for a new job. Or at least start saving your money for unemployment.

And as for the original poster, I'm sorry that it happened but he should've been up front about his schedule so that his managers know what's going on.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#186

Post by blowski »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #33
blowski wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.

1:1s are far from a solution. Many "competitive" companies use this asymmetrical conversations behind closed doors to push employees to overpromise and therefore under-deliver. It's also very easy to manipulate employees into feeling guilty or develop impostor syndrome.

That's like saying you shouldn't have elections because totalitarian dictators can abuse them. If your boss's plan is to make you feel bad, it doesn't matter what management technique they use.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#187

Post by BrandoElFollito »

scarface74 wrote: post #126
crucini wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked blue collar jobs where bosses are way more direct, like your Russian managers - and it's better. I remember one who would tell me most mornings, "Try not to fuck up today!" When a boss is angry and direct in giving feedback, we don't become resentful; we get scared for a while, then settle down. It's the natural way of hierarchy. We all need course correction from time to time, and the modern white-collar…

I had three different style managers within a three year period. 1. An old army guy who was about 48 who left the military in his early 30s and became a developer. He was smart, direct, but polite. He called a spade a spade, put family first and I enjoyed working for him. He would always tell you when your stuff stinks. He had a falling out with the main office located in another state about two hours away because he…

Which one you preferred? #1 or #3?

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#188

Post by scarface74 »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #187
scarface74 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had three different style managers within a three year period. 1. An old army guy who was about 48 who left the military in his early 30s and became a developer. He was smart, direct, but polite. He called a spade a spade, put family first and I enjoyed working for him. He would always tell you when your stuff stinks. He had a falling out with the main office located in another state about two hours away because he…

Which one you preferred? #1 or #3?

Managers like #3 have the ability to advocate for their directs when it comes to career development and advances and when it comes to salary.

The one weakness with good managers who are both technically strong and know how to navigate corporate America and "manage up" seems to be that they don't have the time to be technical leads and get into the nitty gritty of what their department is doing. They have to hire or promote someone as the "benevolent dictator" who enforces best practices and who has interpersonal skills to keep the manager informed and to talk to the customer - either the internal or external customer.

The architect role is really important for a type 3 manager.

If you need a mentor though, manager #1 is better but go in with the understanding that the only way you're going to get ahead in your career with that type of manager is to learn what you can from them and be prepared to advocate for yourself within the organization or more realistically, find another job and use what you've learned.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#189

Post by nate_meurer »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #140
overgard wrote: post #138

I agree that PIPs are mostly just HR covering themselves in firing an employee, but this just reads like a long list of excuses for a person not performing their job. Its at-will employment for both sides, the company isn't obligated to care about your personal issues. If your work output isn't good, it kinda doesn't matter if you have kids and your manager is younger -- theyre giving you money for your work not beca…

I had a contract with a household name theme park company that is known for treating its employees like disposable widgets. It made headlines a while back by laying off tons of people and only keeping some on to train their offshore replacements. That kinda place. So while I was there, there was this one guy in the department who was almost never at work. He was always "working from home." Occasionally he would turn…

What's with the fake obfuscation? Any reason to avoid saying simply "I worked for Disney"?

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#190

Post by dllthomas »

JimDabell wrote: post #164
avip wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm judging by my extensive experience co-working with remotes. No "time zone" makes it legit to be non-responsive for over 24h during work days. It's 100% ok to be not working but that's referred to as "day off" and should be communicated as such.

It's not just you that has extensive experience with this. Sure, some teams are managed synchronously as if they were co-located, but just because that's what works for you, it doesn't mean that is the only way to do things. You quite clearly have a concept of a standard work day because you keep going on about "work days". Not all teams are run that way. If you communicate to your team that you want them to work to…

I think it is misleading to label "expected to be responsive within 24 hours during the work week" as "managed synchronously as if co-located". Sure, there are even looser arrangements that can work great for some contexts. And it's absolutely the case that norms vary. But "within 24 hours" more-or-less puts all timezones on the same footing and is pretty far from co-location.
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