Initiating a PIP Your Employee Can Survive

Have you, or someone in your organization, used a performance improvement plan (PIP) to sincerely help an employee whose performance is inadequate? How about using it as a pro forma pretext to justify firing a worker? PIPs are often misused to create a paper trail to terminate an employee. They can sometimes mean “We want you to quit.”

Beware issuing an unwarranted PIP, for example, in retaliation for a protected activity such as whistleblowing, or for discriminatory or other reasons. That can backfire, and lead to legal liability.

Many employees do not survive in their job after a PIP. Even those who complete a plan’s requirements successfully often leave within the following year.

So how can you write and use a PIP to retain talent instead of losing it, and preserve your subordinates’ livelihoods rather than disrupting them?

Do’s and Don’t’s

Try to avoid giving a PIP in the first place. Tackle performances issues when they first appear and are small. The PIP meeting should not be the first time an employee hears about the problem or its severity. If the PIP is your first step in addressing problems, it will impact morale, not only of the employee who needs improvement, but of those around them, because it will make every job seem insecure. Receiving a PIP out of the blue can feel like nothing more than the last stop on the way to termination, and the employee will may feel undervalued not only by management but by their colleagues. Those feelings can undermine the recipient’s chance of success fulfilling the plan and may cause them to leave before you can fire them. And whatever the outcome, a PIP may harm your relationship with them. Even if they complete their PIP, your relationship with them most likely will have changed forever.

A PIP should help an employee perform better and keep their job. Here are some things to consider that can make a PIP successful.

• Be reasonable with time frames. PIPs usually last for 30, 60 or 90 days. If the PIP time period is too short, you may be setting up your employee to fail.
• Don’t write the PIP by yourself. Collaborate with human resources and the employee to create a plan that’s legal and attainable.
• Include teaching and/or mentoring to help the employee succeed.

Avoid:

• Setting unrealistically high goals
• Forcing the employee to complete new assignments that distracts from their primary job responsibilities
• Having the same person who initiated the PIP take the lead in overseeing and assessing progress
• Increasing stress on the recipient to the point that they can’t fullfill the PIP requirements
• Reinforcing biases. Don’t base your evaluation on how much the employee acts like you.
  

When the Employee is Neurodivergent

A PIP can be especially problematic when the employee is neurodivergent, for example, on the autism spectrum. Too often, a PIP can be used unfairly to try to force neurodivergent workers into neurotypical behavioral norms. Neurodiversity expert Hayley Brackley said, “PIPs often inadvertently impose a rigid adherence to nine-to-five working schedules, which may not align with the varied energy and communication cycles of neurodivergent individuals. There’s often an expectation of certain social interaction and communication styles, disregarding the different ways neurodivergent individuals may process social cues and express themselves.”

An example of bias could be a mandate in your PIP that your autistic employee appear on camera during all virtual meetings. Many autistic people do not like being on camera during remote meetings, and your autistic employee could perform well at work without always appearing on camera.

I’ll have more concrete recommendations on writing and implementing PIPs in my next article. Remember that the point of a PIP is to set your poor-performing employee up for success — not to force them out.

Miriam Edelman, MPA, MSSW, is a Washington, D.C.-based policy professional. Her experience includes policy work for Congress. Miriam’s undergraduate degree is from Barnard College, Columbia University, with majors in political science and urban studies. She has a master’s in public administration from Cornell University, where she was inducted into the national honorary society for public administration. She has a master’s of science in social work (focusing on policy) from Columbia University. She is a commissioner of the DC Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Miriam aims to continue her career in public service. She is especially interested in democracy, civic education, District of Columbia autonomy, diversity, health policy, women’s issues, and disabilities.

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