> Employers in the US don't care about giving people the opportunity to improve, it's more about documenting the underperformance so there is an airtight case against the employee - nobody can claim a protected reason if the underperformance is very well documented.

Actually, these efforts often don't help much. As a rule, if you find yourself doing elaborate cover-your-ass excessive, you probably are doing something very systematically wrong. I've seen plenty of situations where the well-meaning managers documented everything, did the whole document poor performance, and a single deposition of a manager made it clear that the entire process used to document and remedy under-performance was simply collusion to fire someone for a protected reason... even though in reality, it was not. It goes kind of like this:

"So after four years of not a single entry in ___'s file, suddenly a poor review and a complicated PIP?" "____ just wasn't fitting in on the team."

"Hmm. _____ is the only _____ on the team, despite _____'s race/religion being ___% of the population. All hires made after you became manager were (insert manager's race/religion/sex). No other employees on your team are on PIPs. So, why is it that ___ wasn't fitting in?"

"I can haz consult with lawyer now?" (followed by settlement for 2x manager's salary)