Husband has a meeting about a performance improvement plan, what to expect?

[Namechanged1210]

Just that really. My husband has a meeting on Monday. His boss told him not to lose sleep over it but that they wanted to put a performance improvement plan into place because his work was deemed inconsistent.

What does this mean realistically?

I am worried because he was told a month or two ago that the company was going to have to get rid of a few employees as they couldn't afford it anymore.

Thank you

They will put a list of things that your husband has to do and targets he has to make. If he misses them then they get rid of him.

To be fair if a company says they are going to make redundancies then your husband needs to be looking for another job anyway, unless they indicate they are going to give him a pay out. Then he waits until that is confirmed before leaving for another job.

Thank you for your reply!

I read that many companies use that as a facade to start the process to fire someone.
Some set expectations so high that the employee has no choice but to resign.

Is this all true?

You are right about looking for another job during redundancy

Thank you

They will give targets and ask if he needs support to meet them. A fair performance plan will be a supportive measure to retain the staff member, an unsupportive one is simply an HR process to go through before dismissal. It sounds like your husband's employer is supportive (given they've said don't lose sleep).

It may be home stress is inadvertently spilling into work and affecting his productivity, if so work can put measures in place to support him.

I read that many companies use that as a facade to start the process to fire someone.

Yup, but it's not really a facade. If your management team is telling you that your performance is substandard, you should have enough common sense to know you're on thin ice. Your husband either gets it together or he'll be sacked.

It’s basically the process of an employer wanting rid of someone. No one gets on a performance plan and then stays happily afterwards.

Thank you all for your answers 🙏

Corporate executive who has actually managed these here:

Context is everything, really!

On the possibly worrying downside: this is, broadly speaking, a time of economic downturn. A lot of firms areincreasing the pressure. And, let me be cynical here for a moment, even though it tends to be my job to pretend otherwise: if you are going to downsize, it isa lot cheaper to let employees go "for cause", a.k.a. "not as part of a layoff - which tends to come with severance packages - but on the grounds of poor performance".

My own employer is partially doing this right now! And, make no mistake! As the executives involved in some of these decisions, we know exactly that, in the next conference room, our own bosses might be discussing us at the very same time!

On the upside: an official performance plan is actually a brilliant thing! It is a formal process with formal documentation, and subject to "official" company record! If my best friend were asking about being put on a PIP, here is what I would advise:

1. Make sure they document everything. Yes, I said "they" - make management do it! Make them include a lot of details! Especially: make sure that management support is very clearly described.
2. Avoid wishy-washy goals and vagueness.
3. Actively manage expectations.
4. Thendo exactlyas asked to do in the PIP. Basically: be the most perfect, over-performing employee ever to have existed.
5. At this point, youdocument everything - especially (but not only): any management or leadership failure to deliver on promises of support.
6. In parallel: join a union. Or get a solicitor. Just: get some backup!
7. Long story short: your goal is to either get off PIP or to build a really strong case for how you were deliberately set up to fail to begin with. No firm wants to go to court if it can avoid it! The cost far exceeds a decent package and it comes with the potential of a PR nightmare!

What confuses us a lot is that he hasn't had any complaint so far.
He met every deadline he was given and was even awarded a sort of employer of the month award a couple months back.

He has a few problems about a year and a half ago because of a very stressful time but he got it together and started performing well enough for people to compliment his work again.

Get ACAS on side. You can't go to tribunal without having followed due process with them

Thank you so much!! Ill look into all that

While I obviously have no idea at all who your husband is or what he does for a living:

Where I work, we currently enforce quotas on "how many people we are flagging as underperforming".

I know other firms have similar policies in place.

In case you are looking at a "silent" layoff, "good feedback - followed by out-of-the-blue PIP" might, literally, be quota driven!

In which case, your DH should be looking at his peers and identify a strategy for "outperforming" them personally.

hmmm - did you see evidence of an employee of the month award? Not saying he didn’t, just that your impression of his past performance is second hand so may/may not be accurate.

in addition, I have a team member (not my direct report but a rung below) who was praised publicly by an exec recently, following customer feedback - only problem is that the thing he has excelled at is not actually his job, it’s a completely made up addition to his job that he has instigated and that gets in the way of him doing what I actually need him to. It’s very awkward because I had been thinking of putting him on a performance plan and now that’s a bit more awkward. But I still might because I still need him to do his actual job.

Thank you so much!

I will let him know all that

He will be expected to meet short, medium and longer term goals.
First thing in our company that we need to ensure is whether they've had sufficient training to do their job .. so check that with him - my DH was promised training when he started, 2 years in he still hadn't been allowed to go on the course and he couldn't do his job properly - I told him to focus on pushing that and they quickly realised it was their issue, not his!

Thats a very good point!

I didn't see any proof, but he told me his colleague nominated him and a few weeks later he told me he got extra money because he was awarded the prize

There is obviously something I'm not aware of, it just comes as a shock

Ah ok, that could be much more minor than you think. At our company anyone can nominate another person for recognition and they get a £25 voucher in return. I try to give a handful out each quarter when I see people going above and beyond. On the other hand, it could be a big deal, but it’s hard to say!

Another thing to look out for: is he significantly better paid than his peers doing comparable work? (Typically happens when employees are older and much more seasoned, but technically of the same rank, as their peers!)

Because, yes, it can be a factor in who gets the silent lay-off!

Also, Peekingovertheparapet gives good advice from the vantage point I am not currently attempting to represent!

Agree with @HeidiInTheBigCity over the pay question. Lots of orgs are looking to reduce cost base at the moment, and I have some team members who are paid considerably more than I am based on past pay structures and decades of service. It’s so pronounced that within the same team and the same responsibility there can be >£25k difference from lowest to highest paid. So alongside headcount quotas an org might want to get rid of very expensive people. Especially without having to pay redundancy. But in my dept’s case those highly paid individuals are definitely not delivering more value (or in some cases even the same value) as some of the cheaper heads we have.

That can be the case but a couple of people I managed were put on a PIP for a short period, made the changes asked of them and went on to progress with the company.

Sadly, in the context of a business that has already said they need to let people go I think he needs to be prepared to document everything as pp said, and if he has a union (or can join one) get them involved. A friend of mine was 'managed out' of her job just before (in the same week) as a fairly large number of redundancies were announced and using her union and the evidence she had from the PIP process managed to challenge her employer and get a payout. She didn't need to go to tribunal as they made her an offer 'as a gesture of goodwill' but I'm sure they wouldn't have done that if they didn't think she had a reasonable chance of showing that her dismissal was not really performance related.

He should make sure that he does not agree to anything that he does not really think is reasonable. I'm sure it can be tempting to just go along with whatever they say to avoid being seen as argumentative/trouble causing etc but if he agrees with something at this stage it will be difficult to claim otherwise later if it all goes wrong. Also, as pp mentioned make sure they agree and document any support he will need to achieve this and if this is not provided raise it with them and document that he has done so. I

He will be given targets and hoops to jump through. I know people who have improved and stayed with the company so it’s not always to get rid of people. However, he would be wise to start applying for jobs as a back up. I know of people put on them as other members of the team had left, they were doing the job of four people, working incredibly long hours- but because performance was down; they were pipped. The managers knew everything I’ve just told you as well. My point is; he might appear to be doing very well, but if he’s doing 1.5 x the work of a similar employee last year and getting slightly lower performance then it could be triggered.

Thank you all for all your help and advice. We will look into a union too.

He isn't paid more than his colleagues. He was employed a little over two years ago and he is still a graduate

Not true. Someone I work with has been on one twice and is still working with us. She is terrible at her job still!!!!

In a healthy workplace they do, I've seen some people go on to thrive after being on a PIP

1st off don’t panic these plans are standard

they will review his performances and tell him which areas he’s falling short in

there will be a plan to get him up to speed could be extra training or support

there has to be a structured measure in place so they can measure if his performance is improving or declining

there should be review dates to discuss how it going

any action decided has to be discussed and documented if he feel any targets given are unrealistic say so and document and give reasons why
also if he need any support and training ask for it

the meeting shouldn’t be your shit do better it has to be evidenced and structured actions to resolve it

we use them all the time because nowadays you have to be so careful any criticism of performance and next thing your accused of bullying

I wanted to reassure you that both me, and people I know, have been on PIPs, have come out of the other side to have great careers within the company.

Having said that, it’s always worth being aware of roles on LinkedIn and doing the odd interview to keep the skill of interviewing up to date.