8 ms·

What does PIP stand for? I haven't run into that acronym before

by netizen-936824 5y ago

lkschubert8 5y ago
Performance improvement plan
- sharkweek 5y ago
  This, and it's mostly a death sentence. If you're on a PIP the odds you survive it are low, used mostly to manage people into quitting.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    "You're fired, but I am just waiting on the paperwork."
bennysomething 5y ago
I think it's performance improvement plan, but that's a guess
cjaro 5y ago
Performance Improvement Plan. It's basically the company's way of saying "We want to fire you, but don't have a reason on the books, so here you go. In six months, pack your bags and go."
- dudus 5y ago
  I respect your view and while that may be true on a lot of cases that's not what the company represents a pip to be. A PIP is a situation where you are told you are not performing at the desired level and needs to improve. In a respectable company being on a pip can be good for you. In my personal case I was not performing well due to personal issues. Getting on a pip saved my job. It gave me the resources and attention to turn the situation around. You get a clearer plan of what you need to do and closer relationship with mentors to help you on the way. But again if you don't improve you are fired and you have that hanging over your head.
  - mbfg 5y ago
    the key words here are "what the company represents" of course they are not going to represent it as, "we are going to fire you". Good for you to keep the job (if that's what you wanted) but in general it's a legal process companies do to easily fire people.
  - _moof 5y ago
    I've put people on PIPs. I genuinely wanted them to do better. They did. Like you said, they are a tool for laser-focusing attention on specific, well-defined issues. There is no actual ass-covering need to put someone on a PIP. If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason. Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there.
    - yourapostasy 5y ago
      > Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there. Which is why I advise anyone who asks me about PIPs who I deem is sufficiently introspective to immediately secure another job and leave if they receive one. The pure game theoretic approach for employees to use is: unless they have overwhelming historical evidence their manager is someone like you, it is safer for them to assume they are in the majority lumped in with sub-optimal management (much less leadership, both activities tough as hell to pull off well), and insta-bail as soon as they can. The challenge with PIP's is there are no governance controls around their deployment, so they are weaponized for purposes other than their purported staff development role: as budget controls (deliberately hire some people with the intention to PIP them to maintain headcount), as knife fighting, as political machinations, as compensation-busting tool, etc. There are legitimate employees who need a PIP for the ostensible purpose they were created for. They're more rare in my experience than how many times PIP's are actually used.
    - sushisource 5y ago
      It's not that they need a reason intrinsically, it's that if the person being fired is of a protected class, the company wants to protect against that person suing for discrimination. Those sort of suits are definitely filed without grounds sometimes, and it's expensive to prove it's baseless, so the PIP can be a way to establish cause. All that said I agree they can be genuine. They also can be ass-covering.
- rossjudson 5y ago
  It's all perspective, and this simplification isn't accurate. It's "I don't want to fire you, but you need to fix these things. Let's put this in the books so there's no disagreement over whether you're aware, and what you need to do." In most cases at-will employment means the employer/manager can fire a person, so if that was the only thing going on, it would already be done.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > In most cases at-will employment means the employer/manager can fire a person For anyone who is a member of at least one protected class (which everyone who has any [or where this is possible, no] race, sex, ethnicity, religion, or national origin unambiguously is for each that apply, and there's some others that are less universal, and that's just under federal law) there is always a risk that that they will file a claim to have been dismissed for that reason, and under the civil preponderance of the evidence standard, if they have any substantial evidence indicating that might be the case the employer needs to overcome it with superior evidence that it is not. And that is what a PIP is for, to provide the evidence trail supporting that alternative reason. They also serve as notice to people to get out before they are fired, which (unless bungled bad enough to support a constructive termination claim) also avoids wrongful termination liability, because the departure is voluntary. PIPs have nothing to do with performance improvement and everything to do with liability containment. For actual performance problems that the employer wants to resolve, regular performance reviews and informal counseling that occurs before a PIP is the means to address it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
atlasunshrugged 5y ago
Performance Improvement Plan- it's basically the precursor to firing that companies do to cover themselves from a lawsuit for wrongful termination
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kahrl 5y ago
Performance Improvement Plan: "We're trying to fire you but need to do it by the books as to mitigate liability."
- prirun 5y ago
  I don't understand why people keep saying this. Every state except Montana in the US is "at will": the employer can fire you at any time with no reason. I suppose you could try to prove discrimination because of age or something else, but just like you can walk out and never come back, the employer can ask you to leave and you're done. Companies have no liability if you are fired other than a discrimination lawsuit. https://work.chron.com/fire-state-mean-20994.html https://work.chron.com/fire-state-mean-20994.html
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    Legal departments are often fairly conservative. Do you know for a fact that the person you are firing is not a member of a protected class? If they are then they can potentially convince a judge that "fired with no reason" could be code for "fired for being the member of a protected class," at least to the degree that the trial cannot be dismissed. Once you have reached that point, it's almost moot whether or not the plaintiff will win, as lawsuits are sufficiently headache inducing and expensive that a settlement is likely. The odds of the above happening might be low, but being made aware of the possibility causes employers to CYA more than you might think in an at-will state.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      Also, it's a check against management.
      - aidenn0 5y ago
        That's also a good point. If the manager for the direct report is racist/sexist/agist/whatever then the CYA becomes even more important for the company.
    - 5y ago
Jemaclus 5y ago
Performance Improvement Plan. On paper, it's a program where management works with you to improve your weak points so you don't get fired. In practice, it's HR protecting the company by documenting reasons to fire you before they fire you. It's rare (not unheard of, but rare) to work your way out of a PIP. In general, if you get put on a PIP, I would immediately start doing some soul-searching as to why I might be on the PIP and how I can improve AND I would start looking immediately for a new job.
- antihero 5y ago
  I got on a (non-Amazon) PIP once for not turning up on many Mondays to many times, and would have passed it (all I had to do was turn up every day I was scheduled to work for a month) but failed because I didn't turn up on NYE (mate convinced me to "stay for one" at Scala) one day before my PIP was supposedly over in the new year (totally my fault). I feel it would have been possible to work my way out of it, I think different companies use them in different ways. Ah well, most of the team got poached by Revolut anyway. I find WFH suits me a lot better because as long as I can go to stand up after a heavy weekend (which is a lot easier if you can do it from home) and then achieve above and beyond the rest of the week, there's a lot less anxiety.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  Soul searching is easy. The only people who put up with that shit are people who don't feel good enough, so they are begging their master like a dog to please, please like them!! The cure? Don't allow corporations to set your value, specially not mad and crazy corporations like amazon and space penis.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    Some people are genuinely hired above their level or have been coasting so long the don't realize they are coasting, and so there are legitimate uses for PIPs. That being said, I hear it's a perverse shadow of that at companies like Amazon that use quotas to go looking for reasons to fire people.
hvs 5y ago
Performance Improvement Plan. Basically, a fancy way for a company to say they tried to help you improve before firing you.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
yonig 5y ago
Replies laid out what it means on paper but what is the employees actual best move? Sounds intentionally impossible to climb out of. Are they given a buyout option to leave or just sit in purgatory for 6 months?
- mbfg 5y ago
  As soon as you get a PIP, get out when you can.
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    Agreed. I can't see any possible upside for staying. It's like if someone threatens you with a lawsuit. You don't communicate with them ever again, you tell them to contact you via lawyer and hopefully you never hear from them again.
- User23 5y ago
  It depends on the employee and the organization. If the employee in question really has been under-performing, believes meeting the goals is possible, and wants to stay, then accepting the PIP and trying to succeed is a risky but valid choice. On the other hand, if the employee in question is fairly certain the PIP conditions can't be satisfied, signing the PIP is a very bad idea. It amounts to written acknowledgement of failing to perform the employee's end of the employment contract and gives the employer justification to fire the employee with cause. If that's the case, declining to sign the PIP and asking about alternative next steps is the way to go. In that case, there's a good chance that the company will offer an exit package in exchange for a general release. One of the upsides of this approach is there's no PIP in the employee file, on the off chance eligibility for re-hire is a concern.
  - w0mbat 5y ago
    Exactly. Object to the PIP suggestion, and say it is being imposed without proper cause for a discriminatory reason, e.g. to harass and force out an employee over 40. That totally fucks their attempt to gather fake reasons to fire you, their only option is to offer you money to quit. I ran into this at a company where my good work was documented, but I'd accidentally annoyed someone really high up and strings were being pulled to ditch me.
killingtime74 5y ago
Paid interview preparation (time). Only slightly joking
subsaharancoder 5y ago
Worked at a FAANG in one team for 3.5 years (got promoted and had good reviews), transferred to a new team and got PIP'd by new manager and eventually fired within a year of transferring. One of my workmates clearly told me that my chances of getting out of the PIP were next to zero but by then it was too late. Best advice I can give someone who gets on a PIP is don't wait or work the process, just make an exit plan and act on it (interview quickly) and own your destiny. Also if you've been a stellar performer and you move to a team where things aren't working out within the first 3 months, transfer quickly (go to HR and claim mental and emotional wellbeing) before your performance reviews get trashed and then it's impossible to transfer.
- bogomipz 5y ago
  Wow, so it's basically like you are a new hire when you transfer? Do you mind saying which FAANG or is the experience you had simply norm at all of them?
  - subsaharancoder 5y ago
    > Wow, so it's basically like you are a new hire when you transfer? Do you mind saying which FAANG or is the experience you had simply norm at all of them? The Big G. Your past performance primarily only influences the decision on whether you have a good track record of delivering, but once you transfer you essentially reset the clock with the new team and manager and the expectations might be completely different for whichever reason, it could be personality or org structures etc. I don't know if my experience is the norm at all of them since I haven't worked at all the FAANGs, but as I said it's important to "read the tea leaves" early, and if the new team doesn't feel right make your opinions known early and plan an exit before you come a statistic.
  - tandymodel100 5y ago

What does PIP stand for? I haven't run into that acronym before

lkschubert8 5y ago

Performance improvement plan

sharkweek 5y ago
This, and it's mostly a death sentence. If you're on a PIP the odds you survive it are low, used mostly to manage people into quitting.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  "You're fired, but I am just waiting on the paperwork."

bennysomething 5y ago

I think it's performance improvement plan, but that's a guess

cjaro 5y ago

Performance Improvement Plan. It's basically the company's way of saying "We want to fire you, but don't have a reason on the books, so here you go. In six months, pack your bags and go."

dudus 5y ago
I respect your view and while that may be true on a lot of cases that's not what the company represents a pip to be. A PIP is a situation where you are told you are not performing at the desired level and needs to improve. In a respectable company being on a pip can be good for you. In my personal case I was not performing well due to personal issues. Getting on a pip saved my job. It gave me the resources and attention to turn the situation around. You get a clearer plan of what you need to do and closer relationship with mentors to help you on the way. But again if you don't improve you are fired and you have that hanging over your head.
- mbfg 5y ago
  the key words here are "what the company represents" of course they are not going to represent it as, "we are going to fire you". Good for you to keep the job (if that's what you wanted) but in general it's a legal process companies do to easily fire people.
- _moof 5y ago
  I've put people on PIPs. I genuinely wanted them to do better. They did. Like you said, they are a tool for laser-focusing attention on specific, well-defined issues. There is no actual ass-covering need to put someone on a PIP. If a company in the U.S. wants to fire you, they generally don't need a reason. Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there.
  - yourapostasy 5y ago
    > Individual company cultures will, of course, vary. There are a lot of shitty managers out there. Which is why I advise anyone who asks me about PIPs who I deem is sufficiently introspective to immediately secure another job and leave if they receive one. The pure game theoretic approach for employees to use is: unless they have overwhelming historical evidence their manager is someone like you, it is safer for them to assume they are in the majority lumped in with sub-optimal management (much less leadership, both activities tough as hell to pull off well), and insta-bail as soon as they can. The challenge with PIP's is there are no governance controls around their deployment, so they are weaponized for purposes other than their purported staff development role: as budget controls (deliberately hire some people with the intention to PIP them to maintain headcount), as knife fighting, as political machinations, as compensation-busting tool, etc. There are legitimate employees who need a PIP for the ostensible purpose they were created for. They're more rare in my experience than how many times PIP's are actually used.
  - sushisource 5y ago
    It's not that they need a reason intrinsically, it's that if the person being fired is of a protected class, the company wants to protect against that person suing for discrimination. Those sort of suits are definitely filed without grounds sometimes, and it's expensive to prove it's baseless, so the PIP can be a way to establish cause. All that said I agree they can be genuine. They also can be ass-covering.
rossjudson 5y ago
It's all perspective, and this simplification isn't accurate. It's "I don't want to fire you, but you need to fix these things. Let's put this in the books so there's no disagreement over whether you're aware, and what you need to do." In most cases at-will employment means the employer/manager can fire a person, so if that was the only thing going on, it would already be done.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > In most cases at-will employment means the employer/manager can fire a person For anyone who is a member of at least one protected class (which everyone who has any [or where this is possible, no] race, sex, ethnicity, religion, or national origin unambiguously is for each that apply, and there's some others that are less universal, and that's just under federal law) there is always a risk that that they will file a claim to have been dismissed for that reason, and under the civil preponderance of the evidence standard, if they have any substantial evidence indicating that might be the case the employer needs to overcome it with superior evidence that it is not. And that is what a PIP is for, to provide the evidence trail supporting that alternative reason. They also serve as notice to people to get out before they are fired, which (unless bungled bad enough to support a constructive termination claim) also avoids wrongful termination liability, because the departure is voluntary. PIPs have nothing to do with performance improvement and everything to do with liability containment. For actual performance problems that the employer wants to resolve, regular performance reviews and informal counseling that occurs before a PIP is the means to address it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

atlasunshrugged 5y ago

Performance Improvement Plan- it's basically the precursor to firing that companies do to cover themselves from a lawsuit for wrongful termination

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kahrl 5y ago

Performance Improvement Plan: "We're trying to fire you but need to do it by the books as to mitigate liability."

prirun 5y ago
I don't understand why people keep saying this. Every state except Montana in the US is "at will": the employer can fire you at any time with no reason. I suppose you could try to prove discrimination because of age or something else, but just like you can walk out and never come back, the employer can ask you to leave and you're done. Companies have no liability if you are fired other than a discrimination lawsuit. https://work.chron.com/fire-state-mean-20994.html https://work.chron.com/fire-state-mean-20994.html
- aidenn0 5y ago
  Legal departments are often fairly conservative. Do you know for a fact that the person you are firing is not a member of a protected class? If they are then they can potentially convince a judge that "fired with no reason" could be code for "fired for being the member of a protected class," at least to the degree that the trial cannot be dismissed. Once you have reached that point, it's almost moot whether or not the plaintiff will win, as lawsuits are sufficiently headache inducing and expensive that a settlement is likely. The odds of the above happening might be low, but being made aware of the possibility causes employers to CYA more than you might think in an at-will state.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Also, it's a check against management.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      That's also a good point. If the manager for the direct report is racist/sexist/agist/whatever then the CYA becomes even more important for the company.
  - 5y ago

Jemaclus 5y ago

Performance Improvement Plan. On paper, it's a program where management works with you to improve your weak points so you don't get fired. In practice, it's HR protecting the company by documenting reasons to fire you before they fire you. It's rare (not unheard of, but rare) to work your way out of a PIP. In general, if you get put on a PIP, I would immediately start doing some soul-searching as to why I might be on the PIP and how I can improve AND I would start looking immediately for a new job.

antihero 5y ago
I got on a (non-Amazon) PIP once for not turning up on many Mondays to many times, and would have passed it (all I had to do was turn up every day I was scheduled to work for a month) but failed because I didn't turn up on NYE (mate convinced me to "stay for one" at Scala) one day before my PIP was supposedly over in the new year (totally my fault). I feel it would have been possible to work my way out of it, I think different companies use them in different ways. Ah well, most of the team got poached by Revolut anyway. I find WFH suits me a lot better because as long as I can go to stand up after a heavy weekend (which is a lot easier if you can do it from home) and then achieve above and beyond the rest of the week, there's a lot less anxiety.
peakaboo 5y ago
Soul searching is easy. The only people who put up with that shit are people who don't feel good enough, so they are begging their master like a dog to please, please like them!! The cure? Don't allow corporations to set your value, specially not mad and crazy corporations like amazon and space penis.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  Some people are genuinely hired above their level or have been coasting so long the don't realize they are coasting, and so there are legitimate uses for PIPs. That being said, I hear it's a perverse shadow of that at companies like Amazon that use quotas to go looking for reasons to fire people.

hvs 5y ago

Performance Improvement Plan. Basically, a fancy way for a company to say they tried to help you improve before firing you.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

yonig 5y ago

Replies laid out what it means on paper but what is the employees actual best move? Sounds intentionally impossible to climb out of. Are they given a buyout option to leave or just sit in purgatory for 6 months?

mbfg 5y ago
As soon as you get a PIP, get out when you can.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  Agreed. I can't see any possible upside for staying. It's like if someone threatens you with a lawsuit. You don't communicate with them ever again, you tell them to contact you via lawyer and hopefully you never hear from them again.
User23 5y ago
It depends on the employee and the organization. If the employee in question really has been under-performing, believes meeting the goals is possible, and wants to stay, then accepting the PIP and trying to succeed is a risky but valid choice. On the other hand, if the employee in question is fairly certain the PIP conditions can't be satisfied, signing the PIP is a very bad idea. It amounts to written acknowledgement of failing to perform the employee's end of the employment contract and gives the employer justification to fire the employee with cause. If that's the case, declining to sign the PIP and asking about alternative next steps is the way to go. In that case, there's a good chance that the company will offer an exit package in exchange for a general release. One of the upsides of this approach is there's no PIP in the employee file, on the off chance eligibility for re-hire is a concern.
- w0mbat 5y ago
  Exactly. Object to the PIP suggestion, and say it is being imposed without proper cause for a discriminatory reason, e.g. to harass and force out an employee over 40. That totally fucks their attempt to gather fake reasons to fire you, their only option is to offer you money to quit. I ran into this at a company where my good work was documented, but I'd accidentally annoyed someone really high up and strings were being pulled to ditch me.

killingtime74 5y ago

Paid interview preparation (time). Only slightly joking

subsaharancoder 5y ago

Worked at a FAANG in one team for 3.5 years (got promoted and had good reviews), transferred to a new team and got PIP'd by new manager and eventually fired within a year of transferring. One of my workmates clearly told me that my chances of getting out of the PIP were next to zero but by then it was too late. Best advice I can give someone who gets on a PIP is don't wait or work the process, just make an exit plan and act on it (interview quickly) and own your destiny. Also if you've been a stellar performer and you move to a team where things aren't working out within the first 3 months, transfer quickly (go to HR and claim mental and emotional wellbeing) before your performance reviews get trashed and then it's impossible to transfer.

bogomipz 5y ago
Wow, so it's basically like you are a new hire when you transfer? Do you mind saying which FAANG or is the experience you had simply norm at all of them?
- subsaharancoder 5y ago
  > Wow, so it's basically like you are a new hire when you transfer? Do you mind saying which FAANG or is the experience you had simply norm at all of them? The Big G. Your past performance primarily only influences the decision on whether you have a good track record of delivering, but once you transfer you essentially reset the clock with the new team and manager and the expectations might be completely different for whichever reason, it could be personality or org structures etc. I don't know if my experience is the norm at all of them since I haven't worked at all the FAANGs, but as I said it's important to "read the tea leaves" early, and if the new team doesn't feel right make your opinions known early and plan an exit before you come a statistic.
- tandymodel100 5y ago