[ablatt89]

PIPs are used as tools to lay people off or get revenge often. It's not meant to be an actual "performance improvement plan." There's many stories of people hitting all requirements within the PIP to still not hit "the bar" due to a constantly arbitrary and changing PIP requirement. PIP is often a cowardice way to do layoffs or for upper management to not admit they have too many resources allocated for their own deliverables.

[aprdm]

In my experience, having PIP'd people, that's hasn't ever been the case. It's never fun for the manager or the person or the company. In 3/4 of the cases they passed with flying colours and both sides were glad we went through it.

[Hermitian909]

IME in cases where a PIP is truly triggered by performance, 9 times out of 10 the manager has already tried very hard to address the issues and not seen results. It's unusual there's anything to be done.

I will see that as someone who mentors a number of engineers, some of the PIPs I see are ridiculous. Here's a verbatim quote from the PIP of an engineer at a decacorn: "Employee must not receive more than 3 pieces of corrective feedback on any single PR". That's _basically_ constructive dismissal.

[JohnFen]

Interesting.

I'm never been PIP'd myself, but I've seen it happen to many -- and it's never resulted in anything good, nor has it ever seemed as if the purpose was actually to improve anyone's performance. It's usually seems like just a thing that has to be done before you can fire them. Even when the PIP'd employee isn't fired, the PIP remains a scarlet letter on them for the rest of their time at that company.

I'm glad there are companies where this isn't the case! I wonder how common those are.

[passwordoops]

I think it really depends on the place. I was PIP'd recently and genuinely thought I was doing something wrong, until it was clear the bar kept moving even though I was meeting all requirements. A few weeks in I discovered I wasn't the only one in that situation (4 others, all expensive senior employees) and the company had a history of using arbitrary PIPs to justify firing with cause instead of having to pay out severance (I'm in Canada)

[haskellandchill]

I've passed every PIP I've ever been put on (2x).

But in this case it's not even a real PIP.

[tivert]

IIRC, PIPs are literally designed mainly to create a paper trail to avoid unlawful termination lawsuits. By the time you're on a PIP, you're manager already has decided he doesn't like your performance and wants you out.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Depends on the place. I was on a PIP. I met the requirements and at the end of the period, I was taken off the PIP and returned to "regular employment" status.

I quit anyway, but that's a whole other story.