[cookiecaper]

"(Personal|Professional|Performance) Improvement Plan". It's the first formal stage in the firing process at most companies with HR depts, which would almost certainly include any publicly-listed company.

If you're at the PIP stage, it generally means your boss and your superboss have decided that it's time for you to go, but for legal purposes, they need to look like they tried to give you a chance, so they work with HR to craft specific-but-typically-unattainable goals which would theoretically allow you to save your job if you hit them all. But with boss+superboss already wanting you gone, the likelihood that they'll agree you've hit an improvement goal that's usually a thinly-veiled form of "stop me from hating you anymore, lol" is pretty low.

If you get a PIP, in nearly 100% of cases, you should just take it as notice that your employment is going to end at the specified review date in the PIP. It's not usually worth trying to hit the goals. Focus on interviewing.

That said, I once managed an individual who had survived 4 PIPs by the time he reported to me. I heard that he was eventually fired about 2 years after I left, but not sure if it was his 6th or 7th PIP. He was a particular discrimination liability at a company that was very sensitive to that type of thing.

[rincebrain]

I once was told by an HR person at a prior job, who almost certainly shouldn't have said it, regarding my PIP (I had extremely pathological sleep outcomes sometimes, unpredictably, but my boss and boss's boss etc loved my work), "It's really neat to see - usually when we get people on PIPs, it's because their bosses want them gone, but your boss really really wants to keep you. "

It rather stuck in my mind.

(I also did not, ultimately, end up exiting the company as a result of the PIP, just for completeness given the context of the thread.)

[yen223]

It might be true where you are, but that's not strictly correct everywhere. Here in Australia, if a company wanted to fire an employee, the employee has a chance to sue on an "unfair dismissal" grounds. One of the ways a company can protect against allegations of unfair dismissals is to demonstrate that a) there are genuine performance issues, and b) the company has made good-faith efforts to improve the employee's performance, and that's where the PIP cones in.

This means if an employee here were put on a PIP, it's usually (but not always) the first step towards them being fired.

[jreese]

PIPs are not exclusively foregone conclusion/CYA before firing. I've personally been on a PIP while in the "red zone" before an expected promotion, and came out the other side with an "exceeds" rating and said promotion during the next cycle. Sometimes, it's legitimately just a formal way of stating "this is what we expect from you if you want to stay here"; if you can meet those expectations, then great!

[KerrAvon]

Are you sure that was a PIP? That’s really not what a PIP is used for.

[linspace]

> it generally means your boss and your superboss have decided that it's time for you to go

The problem is that those are two highly correlated data points. Toxic bosses are eventually found but at that point they leave a track of dead bodies.

What I have seen sometimes is moving around disgruntled employees. It has its own problems but a lot of the times they are recovered and even become very productive again.

[cookiecaper]

> The problem is that those are two highly correlated data points. Toxic bosses are eventually found but at that point they leave a track of dead bodies.

Agree, and this is often overlooked. There's a handful of people I used to admire whose tendency to readily believe whatever's being sold by their middling middle management chain has left me deeply disappointed.

Middle management is a necessary evil, but there's little hope if upper management fails to recognize and subvert its inherent incentive structure.

[andrewcarter]

At the company I work for PiPs _usually_ lead to issues being solved. There are several developers I've worked with on PiPs (we do specific mentoring and follow ups on the areas of concern) that were able to improve and are now doing great. It isn't always a terrible thing, certainly not comfortable for the person on the PiP but it can be a positive thing in the long run!

[efitz]

Good on your company; PIP should focus on shoring up skill gaps or finding better role fit or invinting someone to take unpaid LOA to work through whatever life challenge they have.

BUT, I’ve only ever seen the “unattainable goal” type.

[homonculus1]

That rules