Performance Improvement Plan
Monday May 24, 2004
Are you looking for a format that's a winner when you want to help an underperforming employee succeed? You'll find what you are looking for here. The purpose of a formal Performance Improvement Plan is to help an employee succeed. This format enables you to set goals, establish measures, conduct review sessions and chart progress. Not convinced of the need for this procedure? Check out my introduction to the form. You'll be happy you did.
Whenever a client or blog reader tells me he or she has been placed on a so-called “Performance Improvement Plan,” or “PIP,” I worry for them. In over 25 years of counseling and representing employees, I can count on one hand the number who have remained employed at the conclusion of a “PIP” . . . unless they’ve stood up for themselves by challenging the PIP.
The concept of helping someone put together a plan to improve their workplace performance is wonderful. However, in 95% of the times I’ve seen PIP’s used, what’s really going on is close to evil: it is nothing but a “paper trail” that looks objective in order to justify firing an employee who everyone knows is a good employee.