Being put on PIP

[Rose38]

Yesterday I had a performance review with my manager and it went really badly. She was going on and on about mistakes I had made which were true. She is saying she wants to put me on PIP end of June and it will last 3 months and if I don't improve they can let me go.

Although I don't disagree with the issues she has mentioned, I have not been told anything in my monthly one to ones with her. Nor has she at any point let me know I need to focus on this particular area or anything.

She said yesterday that I don't seem to have grasped the basics of my job which I feel is not fair to say since only in March she signed me off as permanent. Had this been the case then surely you would at least extend someone's probation?

Just for background towards the end of April I had a really bad miscarriage. I didn't go off sick but took a day & a half holiday (to see the hospital). Physically and mentally the whole thing was draining and I guess I dropped the ball slightly at work. My manager is aware of this but when I was back at work, she didn't even ask me how I was and if everything was ok. I've basically had to update her myself when we had monthly meetings (as some ongoing issues from that miscarriage happened).

I feel like the way my performance review has been done seems a little unfair. I agree with where they have placed me and also that they won't be giving me a pay increase due to this but I feel like being put on PIP is a bit much considering the circumstances. And they didn't even give me any indication that anything was wrong or give me a chance in the lead up to rectify things.

Just really wanted a second opinion on how things work in other companies around this sort of thing. Thanks for reading.

What @Drawings says is absolutely right in a corporate environment, although it may differ in other types of workplace.

From my experience working for FTSE Top 30 companies, there is always a set budget for annual bonus payments so there are usually multiple calibration sessions at a team, department and function level to ‘true up’ end of year performance ratings. Whilst these also are to ensure the consistency of how criteria for assessing performance has been applied by different managers, it is also to model performance outturn (and associated spend) against the ‘typical’ bell curve which usually dictates the vast majority falling into ‘achieving’ against objectives, a small number in ‘exceeding’, even fewer in ‘outstanding’ and inevitably, some as ‘not achieving’. As a rough % split, it would be something by like: achieve - 60, exceed - 10, outstanding- 5, not performing - 15. And if any percentages needed to have haircuts, it would be at the top end not the bottom.

I’ve been both an employee and manager in this process. As manager I’ve had to (read been strongly encouraged to!) make marginal calls on which bucket people fall into and at times had to make tough calls. I’ve also usually had to sub-divide those rated achieving into lower third, solid middle and upper third, to help distinguish within that bucket and determine what their pay rise and bonus might be.

As an employee, I’ve twice (at two different companies) received share awards and an ‘achieves’ rating in lieu of an ‘exceeds’ rating and the commensurate bonus, as there were significant budget constraints on bonuses which raised the bar on what would typically be considered an ‘exceeds’.

Is it rubbish? Well, yes. But equally, there isn’t a magic money tree and experience has taught me that the vast majority of people managers are reluctant to have difficult conversations with people and reticent to rate people as under performing when it results in no bonus even if that is a fair reflection of their performance over the year. So there needs to be some way of getting to a more realistic outcome, especially when you’re looking at an employee base of 50-100,000 globally.

Yes do not take it personally. I am quite a sensitive person in all honesty and I found it hard to switch off from so I said to them I know enough from working closely with HR that these things rarely go well so I would rather save myself the stress. I went home and called in and said I think it’s best that I don’t come back. They called me into a meeting saying no we need you this is to help you not manage you out. So rubbed along for a couple of months no problem then it got really busy and I made an error. Then back in a meeting about helping this was mid day I picked up my bag and said I think I need to leave. Another call please come back next week.

Went back last week all a bit awkward. I said I have not had a single one to one just hit with a PIP. I have not had training so did not know I was going wrong I wasn’t informed. Now there’s meetings going on I am dealing with the bulk of the work while my colleague shows pictures of baby and on the phone to her husband much of the day. Then today it was like I was intentionally making the most hideous mistakes. I am not I just do not even know what to bloody do now. The do not want to lose me but they are putting me under so much unnecessary pressure. I cannot really afford to walk and I want a reference if that’s even possible now. Sorry for long post I am actually confused.

It sounds like your job is safe as they keep calling you back & clearly need you. I wouldn't advise you to quit until you find something else.

Best to ask them for more training when you have any meetings with them. Yesterday mentioned to my manager one area that I know I need to learn but I've never been shown it properly.

Also keep evidence of messages, emails etc. It may come in handy to refer back to.

Instead of hijacking your thread I am going to start one.

There is nobody to give training from the moment we walk in the door until the moment we leave it is non stop.

Its driving me
nuts I cannot work like this i don’t really care if it’s safe now.

Good luck OP. Getting your head down and pulling your socks up best way forward.
No sense dwelling on thoughts 💭 that they should have brought up issues sooner or in a different way. Bit of a moot point tbf as if you hadn’t dropped the ball they wouldn’t need to. Same with PIP, some give pre warning, some don’t. Reads like fact it’s PIP denting your ego a bit. You got this. Heads down thumbs up and make sure you give them every reason to take you off PIP soon.

@Biropens you can disagree but I can 110% say with all the confidence in the world this is how it works at our company and others I have worked at. All large FT100 companies too. I don’t need to convince you if that’s not where you work but is a thing

Do they have a policy on pip? Have they followed it?

The manager was supposed to share this with me after the review but I haven't had any link for it. I did try searching for it but no luck.

If this is a 'fair' pip, this policy should be available to you. You can start by checking its been followed. For eg does the policy describe how your performance targets should be set? Are thr targets reasonable?

I would email your manager requesting a copy.

If you are in the private sector then there’s not much you can do.

if you are in the public sector, they should have given you written notes after 1-to-1s staying out the problems, before putting you on a PIP, so make life hard for them by writing to HR saying this has come out of the blue.