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.
Technically, there are two desirable outcomes to a PIP:
1) the employee improves and no longer needs to be on a PIP (rare)
2) the company successfully fires the employee and doesn't get sued because they covered their ass with a PIP
From HR's perspective (and the manager's), it is indeed the reluctant last resort, but it's essentially a win/win for the company. Either the employee improves, or they can fire them while minimizing legal risk.
In other words, it fulfills its intent quite nicely. It just doesn't always end positively for the employee. So I guess in that sense, it depends on which way you look at it.
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.
No matter how much you might try to "ace" it and put in your best effort, more than 9 out of 10 times, the person will not come out of it. Anything and everything no matter how minor is likely to be used as supporting evidence. So interpret it as a notice of eviction of sorts where they pay you some months to find a new job.
Yes, there are exceptions. Thing is do you want to try your luck with HR?
The cure? Don't allow corporations to set your value, specially not mad and crazy corporations like amazon and space penis.
Because the rational choice is to take the high severance (being handed the PIP means your manager and manager's manager have already made up their minds against you, I've seen a coworker given an impossible task), that means that being an average Amazon engineer will have a 50% chance of being fired by your 5th year.
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.
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.
That's only true if they can prove the reason isn't one of several prohibited reasons (racism, sexism, ageism, etc.). And how do you do that? Have a PIP system in place in which the acceptable reason is documented in detail and all employees are treated consistently.
That's why PIPs are effectively termination at many companies. Even if you survive it will be permanently on your record and your opportunities for advancement will narrow significantly.
They don't need to prove anything. In employment discrimination cases the burden of proof is on the plaintiff.
But a documented process, that was followed, that set defined goals, and recorded failures, is going to be a much faster and more sure trial.
Also with respect to the attorney fee provisions, in California they are almost entirely one way in practice even the ones that are loser pays in reality.
For me as a manager, the PIP allowed me to set up an environment where the developer would be able to perform their job in isolation with specific, measurable and concrete tasks that do not depend on any third party.
I've successfully applied this for some devs that were doing really bad for more than 6 months, and it allowed me to find that the person was in the middle of a lot of shit. Once the developer was isolated and given specific tasks, they showed why we have hired them in the first place.
I also have let go a developer for whom the performance plan was more on the people skills side: This person was just not a team player, and was dragging the team along with him. A PIP allowed us to show him exactly why he ended up not being a match for the company.
And then there was another one who was just lazy... didn't do stuff, and after the 2nd month of the PIP he acknowledged that he was just being lazy, and waited for the PIP time to expire so that we fired him (with 3 months severance).
All that said I agree they can be genuine. They also can be ass-covering.
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.
This is true as far as it goes, but exceptions to the at-will rule include Title VII claims, so if they have an illusion of a dream of a identity-based claim, you need some documentation.
Since most companies don’t want to pay even the minuscule amount required to get a valid release, this is the alternative.
"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.
But it was really a time for a parting of the ways at that point.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lawyers tell management this and get blamed for the law and courts being the way hey are. “Buy them out with a severance and a release” gets “why should I pay for something I’m allowed to do.” A few months later in house counsel gets screamed at “why is outside counsel charging us $50,000 for this summary judgment case?!”
“Well, I told you that——-“
“This is your fault! Why doesn’t EPLI cover it”
“You said it was too expensive, so we got the one with the high deductible.”
Since the defense bar also lines their pockets with these cases, and scare pieces on their blogs “review your employee handbook now or else!” No one fixes anything.
And in the U. S., anyone can sue anyone at any time with no reason (though there should be some semblance of a reason, or good luck finding counsel to take the case). Maybe you fired me because I'm black, maybe you didn't, but without any documentation of what the real reason was, the company stands a good chance of settling to avoid the time in court.
Judges hate this be careful. If you sue for "not enough ham in your subway sandwich" - I would bring overnight clothes and a toothbrush. Contempt of court is a thing. Judges hate time wasters.
And you can't just gather those reasons for employees in protected classes or that itself is discriminatory treatment of employees.
So you have to make a choice as a large company: PIP systems or set aside more money for legal fees and settlements. Most opt for the former.
Better documentation means only increasingly bottom feeding plaintiffs lawyers will take the case.
Defense usually wins if they have good documentation of putting employees on a PIP, even if the reason is obviously dubious*.
Maybe I'm cynical because I've only seen it in a lawsuit context, but if you're put on a PIP, start applying. There's no out.
* like, discrimination, company wants to fire long-term employee because of an injury, company wants to fire an employee for union organizing, etc.
I'm a manager at Google and have therefore been privy to a bunch of PIPs. I know a bunch of people who have survived them and many of them have later gone on and had successful promos. I've seen exactly one case where everybody involved was resigned to the fact that the PIP would almost certainly fail and that is because the person being fired was a raging asshole. A manager who wrote a PIP designed to be impossible would themselves be given shit performance reviews.
A PIP isn't just a closed two-way conversation between a report and a manager. In every case I've seen there are multiple eyes on a PIP and revisions to them.
The manager might lean towards salvaging or maybe documentation. Usually, an honest manager would give some hints as to the nature. Like, maybe it’s best you look at other opportunities kinda nods. Some people are also just bad as reading the crowd and would ignore a written sign that stated “you will be fired.”
I’ve seen bad managers give a junior work that needed a whole team to resolve. I stepped in during reviews and fixed that train wreck. However, on their second chance with simpler work it didn’t turn out much better. At that point we probably soured the engineer. Later we removed the shitty manager. He took off as soon as he received his PIP.
One of my first batch of directs I took over was in the latter group. He made no connection that this could lead to termination. I would love to have heard the conversation with his previous manager. Also, he might have been feigning ignorance for more time. He quite simply just needed direct coaching on interacting with people. He went from the worst engineer to someone I tried to give the highest rankings. My manager wouldn’t have it, but we did compromise.
A lot goes on in the background, but something I never did was bend to statistics. I didn’t care what HR thought was the expected target. Some people are spineless and just rollover. Drives me mad. What are they going to do? Fire me and send me some place else for more money?
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.
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.