Worried about HR meeting

[Icarriedawatermelon1983]

My husband has been on a pip for a few months now and it ends very soon . He had a meeting with his boss on Friday and his boss has said he will be called to a HR meeting sometime this week ! He has had a lot of positive feedback from his boss during the pip , met all the targets required , and thought his boss has been happy with him. At Friday meeting he asked his boss if his HR meeting was a disciplinary , to which his boss said ‘ is shouldn’t be ‘ . He’s now thinking he maybe losing his job and is going to be offered a package to go . He’s worked there for 11 years . What does he need to do if this is the case . We are both so worried .

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.

Do they give you time to think about it ? I think if they say this then he’d have no choice other than to negotiate as it would be obvious they don’t want him there . He hasn’t received any invite to meeting yet but it’s ment to be this week . This is so nerve racking

Maybe his boss just dislikes him

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.

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, 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

Actually, I've seen all this happen.

Insecure managers will deliberately undermine subordinates who show them up. And yes, they get away with it.

Your partner needs a new job, OP. Toxic workplaces stay toxic.

No, it isn't against the law. Anyone is allowed to record meetings about themselves for their own personal use. However, your husband should check whether there is anything against it in his contract or company rules.

Disagree with everyone saying that the DH absolutely must deserve to be on a PIP and that he’s lying to OP. Completely reasonable that there are no real grounds to this PIP based on performance, that they are nitpicking anything they can find which wouldn’t usually warrant something to this extent, and that it’s a cover for a decision/plan they’ve already made. This is classic corporate culture unfortunately, in some places. HR exists to protect the company that it’s employed by, over employees.

OP - I would prepare for your DH to be offered a settlement and look elsewhere. I wouldn’t stay in an environment like that, it’s very toxic.

Exactly. In my experience, it seems to happen to nice people who think that straightforward hard work gets you places. I learned to play the game a long time ago, but dear god it's awful seeing good people get shafted.

Couldn’t agree more! Corporate is mostly playing the game at a lot of places. It really is down to your personality a lot of the time as much as if not more than your hard work, unfortunately.

This would be extremely foolish and you’ll get some employment lawyers who’ll do this. Let’s hope OP can speak to her husband and maybe husband can tell the truth if he’s not doing so already.

Yes it’s still underperforming, sorry if I wasn’t clear. He is very likely underperforming but the disconnect that some people were putting down to lying in my experience is plausible.

and if I’m honest, I don’t care what you think about my career experiences. But it would be a weird thing to lie about 😂