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But the point is, would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP? If you give an employee guardrails for success and t

But the point is, would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP? If you give an employee guardrails for success and they flounder anyways, then it seems the employee was not a good fit for the role. It says more about the employee than the process.

blitzar 3y ago
> would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP 90%+ of the situations I have witnessed, extreme luck or act of god would be required to achieve the requirements. In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. I have also had the misfortune to witness one where the employee didnt realise it was all a con to fire them; they got the miracle, 10x'd their teams sales but "failed" some pointless side quest to get coffee for the boss every morning by 6am.
- re-thc 3y ago
  > In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. An examples on how those played out? Curious if the line managers then get punished?
  - blitzar 3y ago
    For the most part they looked like they worked out fine - generally it was a personal problem, people not "liking" people. The line manager gave the nudge and wink to be "extra nice" to the meglomaniac in the senior suite and after a few months cooler heads prevail, along with a documented performance. A lot of actual real world peformance and what people actually do isnt really visible when you are a few layers up (or in a different team). Sooner or later in an organisation large enough someone is going to assume simply because they dont like someone over there, that person does nothing all day long. If one was particularly skilled you could probably use these sorts of things to undermine upper management that is already on the ropes - but that is an advanced technique.
me_me_me 3y ago
I would say it depends, if employee was set to be fired - there is nothing that they could do to avoid it, decision was made to downsize team, or they were assholes, had personal clashes with leaders etc. There are probably cases where pip is used to give a good person who is slipping a kick. That was probably initiated by their manager to motivate them back on track. However, a good manager would have a serious talk with that employee, rather than use formal HR process. So thats why (I think) pip is mostly used to get rid of people.

blitzar 3y ago

> would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP 90%+ of the situations I have witnessed, extreme luck or act of god would be required to achieve the requirements. In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. I have also had the misfortune to witness one where the employee didnt realise it was all a con to fire them; they got the miracle, 10x'd their teams sales but "failed" some pointless side quest to get coffee for the boss every morning by 6am.

re-thc 3y ago
> In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. An examples on how those played out? Curious if the line managers then get punished?
- blitzar 3y ago
  For the most part they looked like they worked out fine - generally it was a personal problem, people not "liking" people. The line manager gave the nudge and wink to be "extra nice" to the meglomaniac in the senior suite and after a few months cooler heads prevail, along with a documented performance. A lot of actual real world peformance and what people actually do isnt really visible when you are a few layers up (or in a different team). Sooner or later in an organisation large enough someone is going to assume simply because they dont like someone over there, that person does nothing all day long. If one was particularly skilled you could probably use these sorts of things to undermine upper management that is already on the ropes - but that is an advanced technique.

me_me_me 3y ago

I would say it depends, if employee was set to be fired - there is nothing that they could do to avoid it, decision was made to downsize team, or they were assholes, had personal clashes with leaders etc. There are probably cases where pip is used to give a good person who is slipping a kick. That was probably initiated by their manager to motivate them back on track. However, a good manager would have a serious talk with that employee, rather than use formal HR process. So thats why (I think) pip is mostly used to get rid of people.