The Performance Improvement Plan is Cruel and Unusual.
So why are so many companies still using it?
Many decades ago, back in the ‘80s and ‘90s when I was but a lad and still wet behind the ears, there once lived a Human Resources practice called the “Performance Improvement Plan.”
I’m guessing you’ve heard of it, but if not, here’s how Forbes summarizes it, “A performance improvement plan, or PIP, is a written document that identifies how an employee is falling short of expectations and what needs to be done to improve (and stay employed).”
Back then, it was simply what Human Resources and Legal required that we all did before we fired someone. But that was 40 years ago. I assumed the practice had long since been retired and was now something we looked back on with amazement and revulsion, the same way one feels when one sees pictures of medieval torture devices.
But when I briefly mentioned PIPs in one of my recent LinkedIn posts, I heard back from hundreds of commenters that reports of PIPs deaths were greatly exaggerated, and that in fact, the practice was still alive and well.
How could anyone still believe that this is appropriate?
Or, put a different way, how could anyone other than Human Resources and Legal believe that this is still appropriate?
You will always be advised by HR/Legal that you need to put someone on a plan before you fire someone since it is HR and Legal's job to protect the company. They will happily subject ninety-nine people to a degrading experience simply to keep one person from suing the company.
But the Performance Improvement Plan is cruel and unusual punishment.
-You know that at the end of the plan, you're going to fire them.
-They know that at the end of the plan, you're going to fire them.
-Everyone else knows that at the end of the plan, you're going to fire them.
Since everyone knows what is eventually going to happen, it’s simply cruel to the employee (and a waste of everyone’s time) to continue the charade that the outcome is going to be different this time.
Instead, we should be treating people the way that we would want to be treated. And I have yet to meet the person who says they would love to spend three months jumping through hoops that are solely designed to create an evidence track of how badly they suck at their job.
In other words, PIPs are not "Performance Improvement Plans". They are plans designed to "Prove I'm Pathetic." And that's simply cruel.
It’s hard to acknowledge when someone isn’t working out. It’s always difficult delivering that news. But there is no excuse not to treat someone with dignity.
-Be respectful and acknowledge that this is as much your fault as theirs. Being asked to leave doesn’t mean that they are a bad person . . . it's usually because they are a bad match for what you need, and that’s on you as much as it is on them.
-Be generous with your severance. The basic rule of thumb is, "How long will it take this person to restore their income" and that’s rarely going to be accomplished in two weeks.
-Be genuine in your efforts to ensure they land on their feet. Think about how you can help them find someplace that might be a better match for their specific strengths and weaknesses. Don’t let HR and Legal restrict you to generic “last title and years of employment” style references. Be honest and genuinely helpful.
If treating people well isn’t enough of a reason to retire the PIP for good, consider that it’s also a good business practice. Because the people who leave your company influence how the world perceives your company just as strongly as the ones who stay.
But here’s the most important part:
When someone is asked to leave, bring your team together and tell them honestly what happened. None of this "she left to spend more time with her family" or "it was mutual" bullshit.
By not telling everyone exactly why somebody else was fired you miss out on the perfect opportunity to reinforce your culture and demonstrate you take it seriously. But worse, you risk leaving everyone else to wonder if they are next, since they may not understand why someone who looked like they were doing so well, isn't there anymore. As I mentioned in a recent blog post, Netflix is well-known for its culture of personal responsibility. But a big part of that comes from being honest. To everyone. About everything. You can’t treat people like adults if you don’t communicate like adults, and that means speaking the truth and acting on it.
PIP's aren't fair because in most cases, the burden is completely on the employee who may not know what they were doing wrong or how to improve.
It looks like I’m going to be the first person here to speak up.
Here goes:
At a well-known and highly respected Ivy League university on the Eastern seaboard of the United States, PIPs are still used by spineless, clueless, and incompetent department heads and inept, soulless, supervisors who work in tandem with the HR Department to oust otherwise talented, skilled, experienced, and likable staff members whose faces have been deemed to not fit in with administrative vision and values (whatever these things may be).
At this particular seat of learning and leadership, PIPs are set up to make it impossible to succeed.
I was one of two people who were both recruited to a department of the university within a few weeks of each other by a senior manager who was beloved by her colleagues but who had clashed with her new department head.
She was placed on a PIP (but had the good fortune to be hired by another organization before her PIP ended).
Within weeks of my colleague and I finding themselves reporting to a new supervisor, we both found ourselves on a PIP.
I rose to the occasion and aced every challenge, none of which mattered because ultimately, excuses were made to justify each of us being fired.
I found myself being accused of having plagiarized my entire portfolio of design work by a supervisor who did not know the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste (and she was the head of publications and an editor!).
A week after she signed off on the termination of my employment, my new supervisor retired.
In a one-on-one meeting with then head of HR before my departure, he alluded to the fact that should future employers seek information about my employment status that it might become necessary for them to disclose that my employment status had come to a standstill due to disciplinary issues and that they may have to disclose as much but … all of that unpleasantness could be avoided if I were to resign from my position before the conclusion of the PIP.
Despite rising to every challenge and test put forth in my PIP, and despite several people speaking up on my behalf, because I refused to resign, the university terminated my employment status.
Towards the end of my time there, I came close to ending it all.
It would not have mattered if Saul Bass, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo had come back from the dead and rolled up their sleeves to help me, the result would have been the same.
At this university, PIPs have only one purpose: to get you out of the way. When staff in these situations resign, the university is saved the expense of paying unemployment payments.
Via an inside source from the university’s legal department I heard that the university intentionally sets up its policy on these issues to make it impossible for anyone to get through the process.
This source also advised against suing the university because it would be cost prohibitive and because the university would use its considerable resources and legal war chest to make it impossible to obtain a fair outcome.
PIPs are designed to erode your confidence in yourself and your abilities. They are used by clueless, incompetent, vindictive, and cowardly supervisors who have no business running a lemonade stand let alone managing staff to reinforce their own self importance.