Worried about HR meeting

I've seen this too. But the genuinely competent people understand what's happened and why when they're put on the plan. They get that they haven't prioritised or time managed correctly and learn to work differently on the plan.
The red flag here is that the OPs H doesn't understand what he did wrong, and doesn't know whether he's put it right.
Its far rarer than people think for 'jealous' managers to want to get star employees sacked. For one thing, its self defeating as their success is yours. For another, it's nigh on impossible without objective evidence of under performance. Not saying never, but its a quack like a duck situation.
I think its an unfortunate state of affairs and not that uncommon for (usually) men, driven by what they want to earn, rather than whats realistic, to go for jobs they can't really do.
They talk themselves in and get by for a while by being Johnny on the Spot for their boss. Then the wheels fall off and they're blind sided, because they confuse effort with outcome.
Their confidence and MH takes a dive and their home life suffers.
It would be so much better if they just found a better fit that they could do with competence and confidence.
Not saying its definitely the case for the OP H. He could be the rare exception of an amazing employee they for some reason don't value. However, it's not usually the case.

The way your DH describes his manager (incompetent, insecure, relying on DH to cover for him etc) is v disparaging… Is it possible that his attitude has been evident for a while to boss, and the PIP is around improving his attitude / behaviours at work?

Has your husband seen any other roles within the business that he's not applied for because his boss told him he'd never get it? (outrageous if his boss has said that to him). I think he needs to get out of that situation pronto (either by moving within the company or leaving). He should also tell hr that his boss has deliberately kept him from applying. It's none of his business if your husband wants to achieve more/get promoted - why can't your husband move up just as his boss has? It needs a long hard look at this. Yr husband clearly has knowledge and ability - he's an asset to the business. But is the business right for him/doing right by him? Feels unequal at the moment

That’s still underperforming, you can’t just do the fun bits of your job and not do the boring bits. In fact that’s a significant under performance. And most employers would move to pip and termination if someone cherry picked the bits of their job they wished to do.

and if I’m honest, I really doubt you’ve even seen one instance of someone doing other people’s jobs and not doing their own.

I don’t agree with the people piling on that husband must be dishonest. Of course he can be the person who fixes errors and still on a pip. Follow closely:

Employee is nice person, and loves elements of their job. Investigations and preparing reports is great, but the boring admin tasks get a bit lost in the shuffle. Because they are good at the bits they like they do them for other people who find it harder and end up being a bit of a go-to person in the office to bail people out. However, boring admin tasks don’t get done, because they’re busy doing other people’s jobs, which is not what they’re being measured on, so they end up on a pip. Seen it loads of times.

It's not against the law. What law do you think prevents this?

Yes it is too contradictory.

there is no way an employee who is so good he regularly has to do the work of others and save his boss, is on a pip.

a pip is for an under performing employee, and multiple discussions will have taken place before a formal pip was put in place.

no manager likes a pip. None. It is an utter ballache. You need to break down what the employee has to do, detail it out, step by step, and have them report back and confirm they have done each step, correctly and on time. I’ve only done it once and on top of my workload, I really didn’t enjoy having to micro manage someone. No one gets to pip stage by being a star.

but it becomes necessary only when an employee consistently under performs. No one is put on a pip for being the office star. No one is put on a pip for helping the boss And effectively being his right hand.

The two are completely mutually exclusive. Op. Trust me, you are not the first wife whose husband has come home and made out how good he is, although you may be the first one who understanding he’s on a pip not even had a moment of doubt on the veracity of that.

Yes they will. Their IT teams can see all traffic on the companies network. Including email , browsing, deleting docs saved in shared drives - quite literally every key stroke made on a company machine.

Yes, that is against the law. He can ask for notes to be taken and if it’s done on teams he can ask for it to be recorded. If he records without consent he would be breaking the law in the U.K. and it would be grounds for dismissal.

This is why Mumsnet is a bad place for any kind of legal advice.

It’s really hard to dismiss someone in a medium size enterprise with its own hr just as the boss doesn’t like him.

I think you’re reticent to accept he’s on a pip for a reason, but he’s telling you there are improvement measures. He’s fully accepting that, and telling you he’s meeting these improvement measures. If he was someone who did the work of others, regularly got his boss out the shit, then it’s unlikely his boss wouldn’t like him and they would be unable to come up with improvement measures.

i think it’s clear you love him and beleive what he tells you about how much of a star he is, he’s positioned himself to you as the department saviour. But you also need to balance this with a man on pip, with clearly defined improvement measures. Improvement measures he accepts.

if he’s being managed out due to performance, I suspect this meeting is an initial discussion telling him if it doesn’t improve it will move to termination. At that point there may not be a settlement.

you will need to wait to see what happens at the meeting, but I’d also consider he may postion himself as fab again and not give you the truth, likely as he won’t want to disappoint you.

if that’s the case and if eventually moves to termination, he needs to negotiate to resign and a reference, otherwise he’s right, he won’t find another job easily.

Yes, quite possible his boss dislikes him or resents his capability or whatever. Being on a PIP is never a good thing but those that are done well and can stack up in a tribunal are where clear objectives and goals are shared then progress is well documented. If what your husband says is true, and only he has been following up after meetings then this PIP sounds shambolic and won’t stand up to scrutiny. If there were any formal action or outcome he should be invited to have a colleague accompany him to the outcome meeting. As that’s not happening, it’s likely that he has passed the PIP. So you have to ask what was it for? Probably to rattle him, put him in his place, encourage him to leave. You only have your husband’s account of all this so it may be hard to get to the truth. Whatever is going on it doesn’t bode well for your husband at this company…he should be careful not to put a foot wrong that includes sending emails to himself, timekeeping etc.

A settlement is a termination offer.

If they were looking to exit him; they could have a protected conversation (often referred to as off the record). Employer would say instead of progressing down the performance management route; we would be happy to enter into a settlement agreement on mutually agreeable terms to terminate your employment. If employee says yes I'm interested, then the conversation can develop into a negotiation on a package. If employee isn't interested then that's the end of it.

Just sending solidarity as my OH in same position, no grounds for him to have been on it in the first place and nothing has been done by the book. He feels like he is being pushed out and seems nothing he can do to stop it. Neither of us are sleeping and the added stress on top of everything else is just too much right now..I don't honestly know how he is still going into work but says he has to. I hope outcome is positive for your husband xx

Every single email that is sent can be traced, if deemed necessary. It will depend on the companies IT policies whether work email can ever be used for personal reasons.

I think there's a few things here that stand out

1. Are you 100% confident your dh tells you the truth/even if he is telling you the truth, it's his version of the truth. It seems unlikely that if he's regularly saving his boss from drama, that the same boss would be managing him out? That wouldn't be in his interests at all. If so, when your dh says that he has hit all his targets, has he definitely definitely hit them all? I've had people move to the next stage based on just one area of a plan/one set of targets missed because it's an essential bit of the job. To save you from being blindsided, be prepared for some of the info he has told you not to be the gods honest truth.
2. If dh is correct and he has hit every target, its well documented, the feedback is exclusively positive and all of this is written down, then he should have nothing to worry about at all. It generally is normal for people to have pips and then improve and move forward. However, it's strange to me that HR would be involved if all was well. I think youre right to be nervous. He needa to understand which stage of rhe performance process he is at? Has he been formally invited to a meeting, told the informal pip isnt working and formally moved onto the process, or is this the informal pip and the meeting might be to put him into the formal stage. Possibly the meeting is because they will offer him a settlement e.g. the pip has been achieved but they still feel it's not the job for him? If so, he should calmly investigate their offer. After 11 years it should be fairly good. Ask relevant questions (would any bonus be included, what dates are they thinking, what's his notice period, does the offer include the notice period etc) and then take it away and ask for a week to think about it. Also he should negotiate, ask for more money, this years bonus etc. He can refuse an SA of course, but then he's working there knowing they want rid of him, which is uncomfortable.
3. He should look elsewhere anyway. He doesn't like his boss, he feels he is set up to fail, despite thinking he does a good job he has ended up on pip despite being in the company for 11 years and therefore (I'm assuming) being seen and known as experienced. None of these things are shouting job satisfaction to me.

As an aside, he definitely should stop forwarding emails to his personal email if they contain any company information. They will be able to see his IT history and if he's sent company info/internal info to a personal address then it is no longer protected by the companies IT security, he should check his IT security policy just in case but in certain organisations they have a blanket ban, in others it'd just be confidential documents or protected info like HR data. Normally it's tightest in companies where info is really important (this is how emails get "leaked" or "hacked" government officials can get in massive trouble for it - as an aside I think hillary Clinton got undone for this!) If he wants the emails just print at work and take paper copies home!?

Is there a union rep/legal advisor you can ask?

The way round this is to log on to personal email from work computer, upload email as attachment, but save in draft.

His IT can easily see that he has forwarded emails to his personal address.

There could be some truth in this.

To be quite honest I’d be slightly concerned that your DH is so worried about losing his job and getting another one, he seems fairly young too. You should never get too complacent in jobs. Always good to know you can survive outside of your current role and company.