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Business management scholars who have been subject to performance improvement programs while working for corporations told Business Insider that it’s just a roundabout way for companies to quietly fire you.
Katherine Rimsha, a business lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, previously worked in human resources for a global software company and before that in a variety of marketing and communications roles.
Rimsha has been on a performance improvement plan himself and knows how grueling the process can be to get there.
Rimsha said she was suddenly placed on a PIP by her boss while working in marketing a few years ago. The two were not getting along professionally, Rimsha told BI.
“No matter what I did, I was never able to get an edge,” she said, and her position in marketing didn’t survive the PIP.
She was then offered a job in human resources.
“In that case, my experience in HR tells me how HR is used to pigeonholing and pigeonholing certain people into certain categories,” Rimsha added.
“I know I don’t want this person in my company.”
A PIP helps HR protect itself if legal issues arise, she said.
Rimsha explained that many of his previous HR business partners were averse to hiring people.
“This feels like a stupid thing to do because it’s like we’re doing this and we know we don’t want this person in the company,” she said.
“They had to take action to protect themselves and the company, but ultimately they were trying to find a way to get this person out of the organization,” she said.
Silent Shooting
For Rimsha, the PIP is an invitation to leave the company.
“If you get a PIP, you’re probably going to be quietly fired three to six months in advance,” she said.
Rimsha said that even before a PIP is issued, employees often see their belongings gradually taken away — a sign, he said, that companies are hoping employees will take the hint and quit on their own so they don’t have to go through the process of issuing a PIP.
“If you don’t get great feedback, if you get removed from projects, if you don’t get to participate in new or exciting work or initiatives, [a PIP] Or they just don’t see that much value in you and don’t want to invest as much in you,” Rimsha says.
Once you start down that path, it’s time to quit your job, she advised.
Does PIP work?
Despite viewing PIPs as a means to terminate an employee, Rimsha said he has also seen them achieve their intended purpose, especially when someone was having problems at home or had become a little too comfortable at work.
She says some managers take a 50/50 approach, with half of the employees who receive a PIP wanting to be retained and nurtured by the organisation, and the other half wanting to be terminated in the most legal and respectful way possible.
For other HR professionals, Rimsha says it’s more like 80/20 — meaning 80% are let go and only 20% stay — and while it varies from company to company, she remains cautious about hiring HR professionals.
“I think most of it is not in anyone’s interest,” Rimsha said.