I knew exactly one person who got put on a PIP by his manager and didn't end up fired. It ended up being because his manager got fired first, and his new manager saw that the PIP was completely ridiculous and the employee was in fact great. Nonetheless, it took that guy's career years to recover. He was basically his team's technical lead, but he was but was still ranked and paid as an entry-level engineer.

I'm surprised the employee in question didn't spend the rest of his tenure at the company applying to other jobs and printing out resumes. Why would you stick around with such a yoke around your neck?

An abusive employer, just like an abusive SO, can demoralize you to the point where you think you deserve the abuse and that nobody else will take you.

Getting out of that pit is genuinely hard. One of the companies I worked for back in the day was abusive, and it took me a very long time to get out. I eventually mustered up enough confidence to leave, but I stayed for ages even after I realized the company was toxic.

I have a very similar story with an interesting twist. I knew exactly one person who got on a PIP by his manager and didn't get fired. Almost anyone who worked with this person including me felt that the PIP was justified because he was known to be an incompetent developer.

The PIP ended up because his manager left the company. He was assigned to a new manager who worked in a different location. So the manager-employee relationship became a remote-relationship for them. He played his cards very well with the new manager and got himself out of PIP.

Nonetheless, it took that guy's career years to recover. Everyone around except this new manager still saw him as incompetent. He is still paid as an entry-level engineer.

It's not really that generous. If they put you on a PIP they want you gone, but it may be a few months before they get rid of you. And if they do eventually need to fire you, you're still probably going to get severance. It's cheaper for them to just give you the severance up front and not have to pay you for any additional months spent working

Also I don't find the concept of the "jury" that generous either. In fact it's pretty weird and seems like it could become extremely political. There's the fact that the person advocating your dismissal is potentially the boss of the people advocating that you stay, which creates a pretty severe conflict of interest. There's a potential factor that a team needs to downsize, and by advocating you not being on a PIP the members of the jury risk themselves being put on the PIP. And of course there's all sorts of problems with whether you're well-liked or not by people in the office for reasons not relevant to your work

You’re talking about Amazon like it is a small company. It isn’t. None of the scenarios you described are possible with Pivot, Amazon works hard to make sure the “jury” is impartial and has not been tampered with. Pivot adds an important check to the PIP process and I’m glad it exists.

Source: I work at Amazon.

Thank you, I guess I just wrongly assumed your jury would be drawn from people you associate with.

What they want is for all roads to end with signing a Hold Harmless doc.

I agree. It’s all about the illusion of choice - it makes you feel more empowered even if all the options are shitty

This is a common parenting trick to get your kids to do something like eat vegetables (would you rather have broccoli or green beans?).

I did, but that's largely because the manager who put me on the PIP was himself on a PIP, and was fired before mine was up.

You're lucky. A PIP is basically HR creating a paper trail to justify your eventual termination (in case of lawsuits, etc).

Once the PIP starts, start asking coworkers you trust if they'll provide a reference and looking for a new gig. Your chances of coming back from a PIP are non-zero, but at the same time exceedingly low. You'll expend less effort moving to another gig with a chance you'll land with a better skilled manager (assuming your manager is the problem, and not you). You might even get a salary/comp bump out of the move.

This advice is more valid in our current, exceedingly tight, labor market and less so when unemployment goes up again (be prepared for a longer search, network more aggressively, and have a longer emergency fund runway).

I wouldn't b surprised if lots of people comes back from a PIP. But I would be surprised if my co-workers were bragging about that time they survived a PIP.

ie. it's likely we believe the odds to be low, because it's not something people talk about.

As a manager, I know for a fact that PIPs are almost never survived in any organization I've ever been in.

Wow, that's quite Kafkaesque. Would be interested to know more about this, if you were willing to explain.

Nonetheless, glad to hear you survived a PIP.

There really isn't much else to the story. I had been at the company longer than that manager, and the person who took over for him liked me.

I will also admit that the PIP did point out some attitude problems (I had been getting a bit surly), and so I did genuinely attempt to correct that. It's something I do struggle with at times.

"Relatively few people go from PIP back to a valued, productive employee."

I hear this often, but as a counterpoint, the last time i looked, at the companies i've worked, the PIP success rate was closer to 50%.

(and those that succeeded did not have meaningfully higher attrition rates, etc)

Like anything, i guess it depends on your company's real underlying goal. IE if you really are trying to get people to perform better vs just trying to make a paper trail to get rid of them.

It is likely that the severance offered is less than the cost of an unsuccessful PIP.