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This is one of the reason I hate about PIP( performance improvement program). They set ridiculous goals for you in very short amount of time that nobody can pos

This is one of the reason I hate about PIP( performance improvement program). They set ridiculous goals for you in very short amount of time that nobody can possibly complete, then fire you on grounds of incompetence. A friend of mine who works in Facebook told me that an employee committed suicide due to the pressure of PIP. I suspect that guy was put into PIP due to poor rating (meet most), then was given a ridiculous task which is impossible to complete. That guy was stressed out and that eventually lead to depression and suicide. RIP

tallanvor 7y ago
I can't speak for Facebook, but I know that in some companies, it really is possible for individual contributers to successfully complete a PIP. I've known at least 3 coworkers at my workplace who have been put on PIPs. They were given realistic expectations that didn't require them to work 50+ hours per week, and they completed the plans successfully. Of course, a manager who's put on a plan is generally gone in a few months, or they're allowed to step down into an individual contributor role.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  that just seems weird though. for it to get to the point of a PIP being necessary, a lot has had to gone wrong until then. feels like it's a blunt instrument, used when usual communication has almost broken down. are expectations not normally discussed more informally in regular 1:1s already? i do know people who have successfully completed PIPs and stayed. but every person who's taken the PIP as a signal to look for another position has done better in their careers and been happier than those who stayed. i get not everybody is in that position, but even if the PIP itself is reasonable, being PIP'd is not. it's a symptom of an underlying issue of poor management and should be interpreted as such.
  - bartread 7y ago
    > but even if the PIP itself is reasonable, being PIP'd is not. it's a symptom of an underlying issue of poor management and should be interpreted as such. That's a very broad statement but, whilst the sentiment is no doubt well-intentioned, it's also misguided. Sometimes no matter how much feedback you give, how directly you express it, or how many ways you say the same thing in your weekly 1:1s it just doesn't get through. Occasionally people don't get it. Occasionally they don't want to hear it. Whatever the reason, you're not seeing the results you need, and whilst performance issues are often a result of some mitigating circumstance (divorce, bereavement, illness, and many others), sometimes they're not. At that point a PIP may be entirely reasonable, whether it looks that way to the employee or not. This is especially the case if the employee's behaviour, performance, and/or attitude is having a detrimental effect on the rest of their team. Unfortunately, it often is. Contrary to what you've said, a strong indicator of poor management is a failure to effectively manage performance, and to develop and maintain high performing teams. Managers are held to account on their effectiveness in delivering against company goals. Effective managers sometimes have to work with an employee to correct performance issues. Sometimes the needed improvement doesn't occur. As cold-blooded as it sounds, this will probably lead to that employee being shown the door. I'm not for a moment suggesting that every manager who uses PIPs is automatically right or some kind of enlightenened management genius. Like any tool, they can be used ineffectively or inappropriately. But if they're never used at all that's as big a red flag as if they're used too much.
    - guitarbill 7y ago
      i have worked at places that never used a PIP. they were fine. they did due diligence when hiring and helped employees grow. maybe i live in a diverse area, most people are socialized pretty well after university and a few years of employment. so disagree about never using them being a red flag. maybe at megacorp inc, when you're hiring thousands, it's a fact of life. with terms like "unregrettable [sic] attrition", you'll forgive me for being cynical. none of the PIPs i've seen have been reasonable, but small sample size. i have also luckily never been on the receiving end, only observing from afar. hell, sometimes idiot managers have put their best, most helpful employees on a PIP because they're... spending a lot of time helping other members of their team! so their individual performance goes down, but the team performance goes up. but when you view people as "individual contributors", you don't see that. i'll happily agree with you on "a strong indicator of poor management is a failure to effectively manage performance", and go one further, a stronger indicator of poor management is a failure to effectively evaluate performance. unfortunately, that is exactly what makes PIPs so tricky. ignoring who's perspective is most "correct", there's still a divide in either performance expectations or perception. the better strategy is still to leave, not see the PIP through. which makes PIPs a good signal for "you're about to be fired", but a bad signal for "we disagree on performance", simply because that difference in perspective exists. putting it on paper is again not necessarily helping the employee. if "it just doesn't get through", is a PIP going to change that? if they aren't performing, if "it just doesn't get through", why not fire them? a possible answer: passive aggressiveness ("work with an employee to correct performance issues") and leave a paper trail aka. ass-covering ("the needed improvement doesn't occur"). but look, i'm not a manager, and don't want to be. could i fire someone? probably not. so is a PIP more humane? i think so. at the end of the day, it sounds like we both agree what it's for, just that you didn't agree with my phrasing. fair enough, although i still maintain from an employee perspective, assuming poor management if you get PIP'd once is a good plan. if you start seeing a pattern, then it's time to look in the mirror.
  - tallanvor 7y ago
    In one example, I think the poor management was with a previous manager who allowed the person to get away with not performing at the level that he should have been. When that manager finally left, it took a PIP for the guy to understand that the new manager expected better performance, and that was after months of warnings.
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    PIPs are merely an escalation. Ideally yes, there would be communication before you reach that point about expectations, how they're not being met, and how to improve. That's not going to fix every problem though, so you modify your approach as the problem persists. The alternative is to just fire people if more regular, casual communication hasn't done the trick. I think it's more humane to give people clear notice that it hasn't been happening though, and it's either time to really get serious or leave. I do think it's close-to-analagous to an altimatum in a relationship, though. Sure, there's probably been communication up to that point, but now it's decision time and it's time to get things sorted out or part ways. It's probably headed for parting ways regardless.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
virgilp 7y ago
It's a sad story; but PIP is really the pink slip; you take it as an advance notice that you're going to be fired, and start looking for jobs. I've heard stories of people completing PIP programs successfully, but quite honestly, I don't get it. Once you got to that point, you're not a good fit to the team and/or they don't appreciate you. Makes no sense to stay. I could understand staying with the company & switching teams/departments, but staying in the same place makes no sense to me.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  One of the benefits of completing a PIP might also be signing off an internal transfer to a team with better fit. There could be times where it's worth going through it to get something better - as long as you're quite far detached from the previous team.
  - AdrianB1 7y ago
    Almost nobody wants to receive via transfer someone with a PIP.
    - mcv 7y ago
      That depends entirely on why they're in a PIP. My team might have completely different needs than the other team.
      - Nasrudith 7y ago
        That unfortunately depends on people being rational. There are those stupid enough to not want to hire the unemployed because of their own prejudices.
        mcv 7y ago
        There are plenty of idiots involved in hiring, that's certainly true. But I was recently (for the first time in my life) had to hire a lot of new people for my team, and I noticed I hire people on probably very different traits than some recruiters and managers do. I don't like candidates who just give socially acceptable answers, I do like candidates who give creative answers, who are vocal, opinionated, weird, outside the box and against the current. And I'm well aware people sometimes get fired for really stupid reasons. I doubt I'm the only one.
mihaaly 7y ago
It took me more than a decade learning how to estimate a task realistically not based on expectations. Due to pressure I always underestimated before which led to mounting troubles on the end despite of working hard.
CubicsRube 7y ago
TechLead, a youtuber that worked at Facebook, has covered this story [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEQriZEfoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEQriZEfoI
- rogy 7y ago
  Everytime I see one of this guys videos pop up I can't help but this he's a bit of a parasite. Leaching off anything for views. He doesn't seem to provide any valuable advice in any video I've watched, yet people lap it up (although his following have a very distinct demographic)
  - spag1024 7y ago
    What's the demographic?
    - wyclif 7y ago
      Developers who want to work for FAANG companies.
  - tjpnz 7y ago
    I've tried watching him a few times and got the same feeling. He also goes to great lengths to remind everyone (all the time) of how much money he makes. Is that normal for people in Silicon Valley?
    - crispyambulance 7y ago
      Yeah, that guy has some kind of personality defect. But, more sadly, it just goes to show how desperate his audience is for someone they can look up to and who will, authoritatively, give them some kind of guidance. He's part of the self-help-vlogger-industrial-complex. There's A LOT WORSE than him out there too.
    - pantalaimon 7y ago
      I always assumed his videos were satire.
toadi 7y ago
As far as I understand the PIP means the company wants to fire you. They just want to do this to mitigate liabilities and you suing them. My country most developers are freelance contractors as we don't like to work as employees. During good times you can switch easy to good projects and more pay. Contracts are 3 months with extension so every 3 months you can re-negotiate. off course during down turns it can be more difficult to find work. Just build a nest egg for those periods.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Wait till the taxman twigs there is $ going begging
crististm 7y ago
My manager's manager told us publicly that whoever sets the goal must also do the work. Practically he implied that we don't have to agree to any objectives that are imposed on us.
29athrowaway 7y ago
Performance improvement plans are a way for companies to keep a paper trail for legal purposes, rather than a effort to improve performance.
foxhop 7y ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/facebook-employee-suicide-being-investigated-by-law-firm-for-family.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/facebook-employee-suicide-be...
koolba 7y ago
That entire concept is in response to the high costs of frivolous employment lawsuits. It's to have a paper trail of evidence to show that the termination was with cause.

tallanvor 7y ago

I can't speak for Facebook, but I know that in some companies, it really is possible for individual contributers to successfully complete a PIP. I've known at least 3 coworkers at my workplace who have been put on PIPs. They were given realistic expectations that didn't require them to work 50+ hours per week, and they completed the plans successfully. Of course, a manager who's put on a plan is generally gone in a few months, or they're allowed to step down into an individual contributor role.

guitarbill 7y ago
that just seems weird though. for it to get to the point of a PIP being necessary, a lot has had to gone wrong until then. feels like it's a blunt instrument, used when usual communication has almost broken down. are expectations not normally discussed more informally in regular 1:1s already? i do know people who have successfully completed PIPs and stayed. but every person who's taken the PIP as a signal to look for another position has done better in their careers and been happier than those who stayed. i get not everybody is in that position, but even if the PIP itself is reasonable, being PIP'd is not. it's a symptom of an underlying issue of poor management and should be interpreted as such.
- bartread 7y ago
  > but even if the PIP itself is reasonable, being PIP'd is not. it's a symptom of an underlying issue of poor management and should be interpreted as such. That's a very broad statement but, whilst the sentiment is no doubt well-intentioned, it's also misguided. Sometimes no matter how much feedback you give, how directly you express it, or how many ways you say the same thing in your weekly 1:1s it just doesn't get through. Occasionally people don't get it. Occasionally they don't want to hear it. Whatever the reason, you're not seeing the results you need, and whilst performance issues are often a result of some mitigating circumstance (divorce, bereavement, illness, and many others), sometimes they're not. At that point a PIP may be entirely reasonable, whether it looks that way to the employee or not. This is especially the case if the employee's behaviour, performance, and/or attitude is having a detrimental effect on the rest of their team. Unfortunately, it often is. Contrary to what you've said, a strong indicator of poor management is a failure to effectively manage performance, and to develop and maintain high performing teams. Managers are held to account on their effectiveness in delivering against company goals. Effective managers sometimes have to work with an employee to correct performance issues. Sometimes the needed improvement doesn't occur. As cold-blooded as it sounds, this will probably lead to that employee being shown the door. I'm not for a moment suggesting that every manager who uses PIPs is automatically right or some kind of enlightenened management genius. Like any tool, they can be used ineffectively or inappropriately. But if they're never used at all that's as big a red flag as if they're used too much.
  - guitarbill 7y ago
    i have worked at places that never used a PIP. they were fine. they did due diligence when hiring and helped employees grow. maybe i live in a diverse area, most people are socialized pretty well after university and a few years of employment. so disagree about never using them being a red flag. maybe at megacorp inc, when you're hiring thousands, it's a fact of life. with terms like "unregrettable [sic] attrition", you'll forgive me for being cynical. none of the PIPs i've seen have been reasonable, but small sample size. i have also luckily never been on the receiving end, only observing from afar. hell, sometimes idiot managers have put their best, most helpful employees on a PIP because they're... spending a lot of time helping other members of their team! so their individual performance goes down, but the team performance goes up. but when you view people as "individual contributors", you don't see that. i'll happily agree with you on "a strong indicator of poor management is a failure to effectively manage performance", and go one further, a stronger indicator of poor management is a failure to effectively evaluate performance. unfortunately, that is exactly what makes PIPs so tricky. ignoring who's perspective is most "correct", there's still a divide in either performance expectations or perception. the better strategy is still to leave, not see the PIP through. which makes PIPs a good signal for "you're about to be fired", but a bad signal for "we disagree on performance", simply because that difference in perspective exists. putting it on paper is again not necessarily helping the employee. if "it just doesn't get through", is a PIP going to change that? if they aren't performing, if "it just doesn't get through", why not fire them? a possible answer: passive aggressiveness ("work with an employee to correct performance issues") and leave a paper trail aka. ass-covering ("the needed improvement doesn't occur"). but look, i'm not a manager, and don't want to be. could i fire someone? probably not. so is a PIP more humane? i think so. at the end of the day, it sounds like we both agree what it's for, just that you didn't agree with my phrasing. fair enough, although i still maintain from an employee perspective, assuming poor management if you get PIP'd once is a good plan. if you start seeing a pattern, then it's time to look in the mirror.
- tallanvor 7y ago
  In one example, I think the poor management was with a previous manager who allowed the person to get away with not performing at the level that he should have been. When that manager finally left, it took a PIP for the guy to understand that the new manager expected better performance, and that was after months of warnings.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  PIPs are merely an escalation. Ideally yes, there would be communication before you reach that point about expectations, how they're not being met, and how to improve. That's not going to fix every problem though, so you modify your approach as the problem persists. The alternative is to just fire people if more regular, casual communication hasn't done the trick. I think it's more humane to give people clear notice that it hasn't been happening though, and it's either time to really get serious or leave. I do think it's close-to-analagous to an altimatum in a relationship, though. Sure, there's probably been communication up to that point, but now it's decision time and it's time to get things sorted out or part ways. It's probably headed for parting ways regardless.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

virgilp 7y ago

It's a sad story; but PIP is really the pink slip; you take it as an advance notice that you're going to be fired, and start looking for jobs. I've heard stories of people completing PIP programs successfully, but quite honestly, I don't get it. Once you got to that point, you're not a good fit to the team and/or they don't appreciate you. Makes no sense to stay. I could understand staying with the company & switching teams/departments, but staying in the same place makes no sense to me.

wastedhours 7y ago
One of the benefits of completing a PIP might also be signing off an internal transfer to a team with better fit. There could be times where it's worth going through it to get something better - as long as you're quite far detached from the previous team.
- AdrianB1 7y ago
  Almost nobody wants to receive via transfer someone with a PIP.
  - mcv 7y ago
    That depends entirely on why they're in a PIP. My team might have completely different needs than the other team.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      That unfortunately depends on people being rational. There are those stupid enough to not want to hire the unemployed because of their own prejudices.
      - mcv 7y ago
        There are plenty of idiots involved in hiring, that's certainly true. But I was recently (for the first time in my life) had to hire a lot of new people for my team, and I noticed I hire people on probably very different traits than some recruiters and managers do. I don't like candidates who just give socially acceptable answers, I do like candidates who give creative answers, who are vocal, opinionated, weird, outside the box and against the current. And I'm well aware people sometimes get fired for really stupid reasons. I doubt I'm the only one.

mihaaly 7y ago

It took me more than a decade learning how to estimate a task realistically not based on expectations. Due to pressure I always underestimated before which led to mounting troubles on the end despite of working hard.

CubicsRube 7y ago

TechLead, a youtuber that worked at Facebook, has covered this story [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEQriZEfoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEQriZEfoI

rogy 7y ago
Everytime I see one of this guys videos pop up I can't help but this he's a bit of a parasite. Leaching off anything for views. He doesn't seem to provide any valuable advice in any video I've watched, yet people lap it up (although his following have a very distinct demographic)
- spag1024 7y ago
  What's the demographic?
  - wyclif 7y ago
    Developers who want to work for FAANG companies.
- tjpnz 7y ago
  I've tried watching him a few times and got the same feeling. He also goes to great lengths to remind everyone (all the time) of how much money he makes. Is that normal for people in Silicon Valley?
  - crispyambulance 7y ago
    Yeah, that guy has some kind of personality defect. But, more sadly, it just goes to show how desperate his audience is for someone they can look up to and who will, authoritatively, give them some kind of guidance. He's part of the self-help-vlogger-industrial-complex. There's A LOT WORSE than him out there too.
  - pantalaimon 7y ago
    I always assumed his videos were satire.

toadi 7y ago

As far as I understand the PIP means the company wants to fire you. They just want to do this to mitigate liabilities and you suing them. My country most developers are freelance contractors as we don't like to work as employees. During good times you can switch easy to good projects and more pay. Contracts are 3 months with extension so every 3 months you can re-negotiate. off course during down turns it can be more difficult to find work. Just build a nest egg for those periods.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
Wait till the taxman twigs there is $ going begging

crististm 7y ago

My manager's manager told us publicly that whoever sets the goal must also do the work. Practically he implied that we don't have to agree to any objectives that are imposed on us.

29athrowaway 7y ago

Performance improvement plans are a way for companies to keep a paper trail for legal purposes, rather than a effort to improve performance.

foxhop 7y ago

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/facebook-employee-suicide-being-investigated-by-law-firm-for-family.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/facebook-employee-suicide-be...

koolba 7y ago

That entire concept is in response to the high costs of frivolous employment lawsuits. It's to have a paper trail of evidence to show that the termination was with cause.