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Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

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Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#41

Post by samaltmanfried »

alphazard wrote: post #20

Companies with PIPs stand firmly on the "Adult Day Care" side of the industry. When serious professionals try to work together and it doesn't work out, someone is asked to leave, and they do. They get to play it off as a reason other than performance. Egos and careers remain undamaged, and everyone can move on. Adult Day Care centers have very low bars to clear, and most roles could be performed by basically anyone.…

Isn't it better to leave on the best terms possible? In my career I've sometimes needed to get references from my last few positions to get offered my next one. Wearing out everyone's good will while you run out the clock doesn't sound like a good strategy.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#42

Post by samaltmanfried »

I got put on a PIP once. It happened because a project I was leading suffered from a huge scope blowout in the 11th hour, and I missed the deadline. To be honest, it actually really hurt my self-esteem. I had a pretty hard time dealing with it at the time. I now look back and realize that the project couldn't possibly have succeeded even if they had two of me working overtime. I ended up moving on from that position a few weeks after.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#43

Post by [deleted] »

alphazard wrote: post #20

Companies with PIPs stand firmly on the "Adult Day Care" side of the industry. When serious professionals try to work together and it doesn't work out, someone is asked to leave, and they do. They get to play it off as a reason other than performance. Egos and careers remain undamaged, and everyone can move on. Adult Day Care centers have very low bars to clear, and most roles could be performed by basically anyone.…

[deleted]

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#44

Post by Maxatar »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #24
alphazard wrote: post #20

Companies with PIPs stand firmly on the "Adult Day Care" side of the industry. When serious professionals try to work together and it doesn't work out, someone is asked to leave, and they do. They get to play it off as a reason other than performance. Egos and careers remain undamaged, and everyone can move on. Adult Day Care centers have very low bars to clear, and most roles could be performed by basically anyone.…

Some places the pip is an alternative to unemployment - if they can "show cause", which is what the PIP is, then your unemployment benefits are reduced or cancelled.

It's often far cheaper to fire someone immediately and pay out full benefits than it is to keep someone on payroll on a PIP. The cost of keeping someone on PIP isn't just salary, it's also the management and maintenance associated with it and the opportunity cost of having someone working on a project that could otherwise go to someone more productive.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#45

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

ugh123 wrote: post #37
jwsteigerwalt wrote: post #33

Both times I put someone on a pip it was heartbreaking. They were hired to do X, Y, and Z. Their cv indicated they were capable of X, Y, and Z. Both desperately needed the job. The pip was “you must complete X, Y, and Z each week. I can’t do your work for you, but I want you to be successful and I’m here to support you”. One was a payroll related position where the lens in which they were evaluated was clear (we need…

Keeping low performers on a team (or ones that yield "failed projects" consistently) isn't good for the rest of the team and/or your own personal stress and productivity (as a manager).

It depends. Sometimes people just need a kick in the ass. Sometimes they have a blind spot that needs to be pointed out. People should be given a chance to improve. In terms of action required, there’s often very little difference between helping an under-achiever hit the mark, and helping an adequate performer grow. It’s just a question of expectations. I argue that a failure to ever do the former makes one a bad manager.

That’s not to say that they should be given infinite leeway, but nobody here has made that argument, so…

Sometimes a PIP is just a PIP. I’m sick to death of the increasingly clickbaity articles that cause employees to preemptively put their shields up as a result of painting every workplace as being a very particular sort of…terrible corporate America.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#46

Post by stubish »

samaltmanfried wrote: post #41
alphazard wrote: post #20

Companies with PIPs stand firmly on the "Adult Day Care" side of the industry. When serious professionals try to work together and it doesn't work out, someone is asked to leave, and they do. They get to play it off as a reason other than performance. Egos and careers remain undamaged, and everyone can move on. Adult Day Care centers have very low bars to clear, and most roles could be performed by basically anyone.…

Isn't it better to leave on the best terms possible? In my career I've sometimes needed to get references from my last few positions to get offered my next one. Wearing out everyone's good will while you run out the clock doesn't sound like a good strategy.

In the last few decades, it seems rarer and rarer for companies to give references, or at least meaningful ones beyond 'Yes, they worked here. No, we have nothing bad to say about them.' I'd wager the companies with a culture that allows PIPing also won't give you a wager. You are left with personal referrals from colleges.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#47

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

ugh123 wrote: post #38
throw141292 wrote: post #34

They are not all in bad faith. Maybe it depends on the company. Once I had a really bad family issue. Won't go into it, but I took a bunch of time off. Coming back to work, I wasn't fully engaged, because there was a lot of chaos. So I got put on a pip. My manager did this in good faith. He gave me a bunch of things to do, a bunch of milestones to meet, deadlines. Honestly, it was a lifeline I needed. And better, I d…

But was that really a pip? A "pip" in corporate culture is typically also combined with a chat with HR and official documentation written by, for, and with HR.

Nothing about what they said indicated otherwise. I have every expectation that HR was at least notified. This feels like a no true Scotsman argument in the making. “PIPs are just the bad ones, everything else is just managerial guidance”.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#48

Post by randerson »

PIPs can be the result of a bad manager. I think "low performers" should be given a 2nd chance on a different team. If their new manager says the same thing, then fire them. I've seen people who didn't gel with their assigned team or project for whatever reason, only to be transferred elsewhere in the company and do well.

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#49

Post by [deleted] »

samaltmanfried wrote: post #41
alphazard wrote: post #20

Companies with PIPs stand firmly on the "Adult Day Care" side of the industry. When serious professionals try to work together and it doesn't work out, someone is asked to leave, and they do. They get to play it off as a reason other than performance. Egos and careers remain undamaged, and everyone can move on. Adult Day Care centers have very low bars to clear, and most roles could be performed by basically anyone.…

Isn't it better to leave on the best terms possible? In my career I've sometimes needed to get references from my last few positions to get offered my next one. Wearing out everyone's good will while you run out the clock doesn't sound like a good strategy.

[deleted]

Re: Pips are disingenuous. If you get put on one, find a new job as fast as possible

#50

Post by alphazard »

stubish wrote: post #46
samaltmanfried wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it better to leave on the best terms possible? In my career I've sometimes needed to get references from my last few positions to get offered my next one. Wearing out everyone's good will while you run out the clock doesn't sound like a good strategy.

In the last few decades, it seems rarer and rarer for companies to give references, or at least meaningful ones beyond 'Yes, they worked here. No, we have nothing bad to say about them.' I'd wager the companies with a culture that allows PIPing also won't give you a wager. You are left with personal referrals from colleges.

Refusing to give detailed references is another practice of Adult Day Cares. It's usually limited to an acknowledgement that the subject of the reference did indeed work there. This is to limit liability, they don't want to get caught up in a libel suit.

Meanwhile, serious professionals primarily use word of mouth and their networks to recruit for important roles. For less important rank-and-file roles, references are one way to de-risk new hires. Anyone applying for a senior position should be able to write down a few phone numbers that lead to glowing reviews. Never having impressed anyone is a red flag for a senior role.

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