On being the employee who “needs improvement”

http://www.virtuouscode.com/2017/07/14/on-being-the-employee-who-needs-improvement/

by jamiepenney • 9 years ago

206 189 9 years ago

blowski5• 9 years ago

My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company.

You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.

tigershark2• 9 years ago

They are utterly and completely useless. You should speak with your boss continuously, regardless of the 1 on 1s. Maybe it's a coincidence but with all the worst bosses that I had we had 1 on 1s. It's just a way to hide their incompetence in my opinion.

Scarblac2• 9 years ago

What is the difference between a one on one and speaking with your boss? I use them as synonyms.

blowski5• 9 years ago

The problem with being continuously available is that it leads to "squeakiest wheel" syndrome where the loudest complainers get all the attention. Meanwhile, the quietly productive people quit because their frustrations aren't heard.

tdb7893• 9 years ago

In my experience 1 on 1s are nice because it allows me and my boss to speak in private consistently. When we are both in cubicles it's hard for me to have candid conversations if I know everyone is listening. It probably depends on the person but I have always really liked one on one meetings.

nerdponx3• 9 years ago

Or unwillingness to hire enough headcount due to being "lean".

danieltillett3• 9 years ago

As a boss the problem is employees take up so much time. Each employee really needs at least 30 minutes of your attention per day averaged over the month (mostly just chit chat, but also mentoring and feedback) [1]. Once you have more than a couple of people to manage there goes your whole day.

1. Yes some people are fine with less, but this is the average amount of time people need. Putting in less just results in a build up of management debt that will come back and bite you in the butt.

madeofpalk2• 9 years ago

...isnt managing and helping out your employees like half your job?

foodie_• 9 years ago

I believe it was Andy Grove who suggest no more than 6-8 direct reports for this reason.

blowski5• 9 years ago

If you can't have a weekly one to one with all your direct reports, the solution is fewer direct reports.

eeZah7Ux2• 9 years ago

1:1s are far from a solution.

Many "competitive" companies use this asymmetrical conversations behind closed doors to push employees to overpromise and therefore under-deliver.

It's also very easy to manipulate employees into feeling guilty or develop impostor syndrome.

blowski5• 9 years ago

That's like saying you shouldn't have elections because totalitarian dictators can abuse them. If your boss's plan is to make you feel bad, it doesn't matter what management technique they use.

darawk• 9 years ago

and I had been taking advantage of the freedom to prioritize family needs when they came up. To the degree that sometimes my bosses were left hanging, waiting for a day or more on my work.
From my biased perspective, it is difficult to see how these “personal improvement programs” for a disappointing employee can ever be a constructive force.
By the end, they were quite happy with my work.

...sounds pretty constructive to me?

peteretep• 9 years ago

The biggest problem appears to be his/her having taken it very personally and then subsequently holding a grudge.

tiredwired• 9 years ago

It's important to know what parameters they use to determine who or what needs improvement. There have been times when a manager told me there was a problem and it turned out he had inaccurate information. The manager was looking at the wrong version, branch or had 3rd hand information. Managers have claimed to be unaware of what I was working on even with daily standups, task tracking and working a few desks away. Some managers are terrible.

collyw• 9 years ago

In my work it's nearly impossible to meet requirements or deadlines, because requirements documents are non existing, and deadlines are pulled out of thin air by non technical management. Fortunately they haven't complained about our performance.

humanrebar• 9 years ago

I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look, we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better enough."

In the story linked, it seems like the author was prioritizing family or health over work at times (me: Good! We need more of that!). The employer can't just fire you for that as it looks a lot like wrongful termination. So they need to build up a paper trail.

tigershark2• 9 years ago

Honestly to me it seems that the author was extremely unprofessional. He just disappeared for whole days without letting anyone know. In all the companies that I worked it was explicitly mentioned in the contract that such behaviour was subject to disciplinary actions up to dismissal.

ciaranm• 9 years ago

I'm not sure " To the degree that sometimes my bosses were left hanging, waiting for a day or more on my work." necessarily means what you're saying. There are absolutely ways to communicate that you need a personal day - or that something is delayed because [reasons] - that aren't 'just disappearing'.

JimDabell3• 9 years ago

It really depends on how the team was being run.

Some remote teams are like co-located teams and work synchronously with set office hours. Other remote teams work asynchronously instead and individuals are free to arrange their work and life as they see fit. In the latter case, if somebody is working on a task that'll take a few days, not hearing from them for a day or two isn't unusual or a problem.

It sounds like perhaps he thought all remote work was asynchronous, but his employer wanted him to work synchronously. But it would take a severe communications breakdown for that to get to the point where a weekly performance review was needed. Normally, you'd talk about how this all works before the person is even hired.

But honestly, when he describes it as humiliating, having a problem with being managed by younger people, and characterising being "judged" by his bosses as threatening, it does give the impression that the prima donna label isn't far wide of the mark. It's absolutely fine for younger people to manage older people, it's not humiliation to have weekly meetings to resolve a performance problem, and your bosses judging your performance is not a threat, it's a mandatory part of their role.

dasmoth4• 9 years ago

While there was clearly a mismatch of expectations here, I don't think working in an asynchronous manner is necessarily unprofessional. And there's really not enough information in the original article to see how the mismatched expectations developed.

comstock2• 9 years ago

There could be reasons... one thing you might not have experienced is not having explicit management, and not even knowing who you /should/ inform. That happens from time to time.

This is possibly indicated by "bosses". Not having explicit line management sucks.

x0x0• 9 years ago

If this were a problem, then his or her manager should have said something the very first time it happened. Waiting for it to happen multiple times and being on the verge of firing someone before telling the employee they didn't like it is wildly incompetent.

eeZah7Ux2• 9 years ago

You are making a lot of assumptions on what is "professional".

A contract is an agreement. There are companies paying very high salaries to very low - expecting very high commitment to very low - in various combinations.

It's up to the company to clarify expectations.

ptero3• 9 years ago

The article is vague about what the main problem was in the bosses view, which they must have told him at the original "needs improvement" meeting (they actually should have told him earlier in a friendlier setting, too).

If it was his non availability when expected (meetings/telecons) or missing explicitly agreed to deadlines, I agree with your non-professional label.

If he got a task to do in 3 days and delivered in 3 days he did just fine even if he was on a beach with the phone off the first day. In this case the failure is with the management who didn't know how to run a remote team (which is a rare skill, too).

MichaelRenor• 9 years ago

It does seem that was the case and then if you can simply say "please never disappear for the whole day without telling me" and that would be the end of it. I think there's more going on here.

csydas2• 9 years ago

I think that is a somewhat cynical view of the matter; I appreciate that "American Work Ethics" are highly flawed and mostly theatrics (I say this as an American expat who has experienced work from all over the globe), but as much as there is management theatrics in the US, there's also a lot of "woe is me" from employees when they're disciplined.

I'd really hate to see how the author of the piece would have reacted to the Russian Managers at the company I'm with at the moment, as the managers certainly don't sugar coat when they're unhappy; it's not abusive, it's just very to the point. Having been a manager when I still worked in the US, it was incredibly difficult to correct inappropriate behavior because virtually every time you did, you did it wrong to whoever you were correcting. Try to be gentle? You were unclear. Try to be polite but to the point? You were curt. This sort of dance suggests to me that we just don't handle criticism well professionally in the US. I'm sure this is just observer bias, but I see a tendency to avoid confrontation at any cost, with too many places hoping it just "works out".

I do think it's from both sides of the employer/employee line. I have been at places that were more interested in just removing people who had some bad habits or needed to have a line drawn for some behavior while otherwise being model employees. I have also seen employees who were absolutely resistant to any criticism for a multitude of reasons, and ultimately the just continued with bad behavior until they were fired or left the company out of frustration with the constant meetings.

The author touches on some very true feelings in the article - no one likes being reprimanded. It's harsh, it's embarrassing, and it saps your ego for many reasons. But like others have commented, I do think that they acted unprofessionally - I imagine the story would have been much different had the author simply PM's a manager or boss "hey, family issue, going to be incognito today, I'll try to get an update by X" or just anything to keep them in the loop. The author also seemed unaware of the expectations of their bosses before hand, so maybe that's the fault of the company or the fault of the author. The age disparity I appreciate the uncomfortableness of, but it's going to be something that is more and more of a reality. (Ageism in tech is very real, so not discounting that, but the reality of the world is that there are going to be many young tech managers; staying out of management is great, but it needs to come with the understanding that eventually you'll be older than your bosses on average).

cloakandswagger• 9 years ago

Unfortunately it seems that the same smiley, inoffensive, A-for-effort mentality that exists in our school system has fully invaded the corporate world.

I experienced this personally after talking to a report about their absenteeism. Within a day I received a lengthy email from them complaining about my directness. That 30 second exchange was escalated to management; they agreed that my feedback was justified (the employee in question had missed our team's only recurring meeting for the past month) but suggested I adjust my "tone" to avoid embarrassing them.

I can't help but see similarities when I read this article. Speak directly to someone and they'll get their feelings hurt. Sugarcoat it and they'll claim that you weren't clear enough. Casually hint at the issue and they'll claim you were passive aggressive.

Something is fundamentally wrong with an environment where adults can't have honest and direct interaction for fear of hurting someone's feelings.

matt_wulfeck• 9 years ago

I once had a boss that would get really worked up and angry if you made him mad. He's spew why he was upset at you. But then that was it. You knew when it was over. I miss that refreshing interaction in a weird way.

crucini• 9 years ago

I've worked blue collar jobs where bosses are way more direct, like your Russian managers - and it's better. I remember one who would tell me most mornings, "Try not to fuck up today!" When a boss is angry and direct in giving feedback, we don't become resentful; we get scared for a while, then settle down. It's the natural way of hierarchy. We all need course correction from time to time, and the modern white-collar way sucks.

This guy's bad feelings were increased by his isolation. Compare this to an old school environment where you got yelled at by the boss, then emerged from the office to the jokes of your co-workers who heard the yelling through the door. That's a more natural environment.

(The old school boss sometimes fucked up by abusing an employee in front of co-workers. It should always be done behind closed doors.)

However in many years of corporate work I can rarely figure out what my bosses actually want or what they're thinking. They talk about corporate initiatives and get that uncomfortable "lying" body language, probably because they don't really believe this stuff but have to parrot it.

Getting back to your Russian managers - I think we are wired for hierarchy but we need certain signals to be comfortable with it. We like to work for bosses who are comfortable wielding power. When the boss projects too much weakness, the power relationship becomes very uncomfortable. I'm guessing that the remote bosses in the story didn't give strong course correction early on because they felt uncomfortable. They let the situation escalate, then took this drastic action.

BeetleB6• 9 years ago

I'd really hate to see how the author of the piece would have reacted to the Russian Managers at the company I'm with at the moment, as the managers certainly don't sugar coat when they're unhappy; it's not abusive, it's just very to the point.

I don't know - he may actually prefer it?

I had a manager who would be polite, indirect, etc when he wanted to criticize me. As a result, he did a really poor job at it and because he felt defensive he felt he had to strategize the whole thing, and it was a waste of company time. I cannot correct his misconceptions because he was so indirect that it wasn't clear what his concerns were, etc.

My other boss: He occasionally has a tantrum and throws F-bombs - borderline shouting. Very scary in the beginning, but overall better. The direct feedback loop works well. And when he's wrong, even if he won't admit it, it is less stressful for me. It's easier when you know someone is wrong than when you don't even know what the person is thinking.

Anyway, to the larger point - a company should invest in coming up with an appropriate methodology for having these conversations. Managers should follow it ("stick to the script"), and employees should be aware of it as well. That way, at least there's no side conversation on how appropriate the feedback was.

rev_null• 9 years ago

A less cynical viewpoint is that personal improvement plans give an employee time to job hunt.

softawre• 9 years ago

I've made that comment to people when I've put them on a PIP before. We both knew what was going on...

scarface743• 9 years ago

If occasionally you have to do something for your family during hours you have to work, you at least owe your coworkers/manager a quick "I'll be offline for a few hours". He didn't do that.

There was no indication from the article that the company demanded unreasonable hours.

dba7dba• 9 years ago

This is very true in corporate America. They are NOT really interested in improving your work performance. They are simply starting the process of letting you go while building up the necessary paper trail to show employment lawyers (in case they show up) that the management did their best to try to help the employee improve performance but that it just didn't work out. They are just covering their butts.

So if you ever get called in for performance improvement meeting by your manager, you should just start looking for a new job. Or at least start saving your money for unemployment.

And as for the original poster, I'm sorry that it happened but he should've been up front about his schedule so that his managers know what's going on.

pasbesoin• 9 years ago

Yep. U.S. "improvement plans": Accumulate actions and documentation to justify and CYA the action already planned.

If you ever face one of those, and you have the option to walk away and start something else / somewhere else, go. Just like the B.S. in the name, "improvement plan", anything they say that sounds positive about the action is most likely just being disingenuous.

I'll take all this back a step further: If you are not happy with the job, or have a lot of friction with your management, walk away. The sooner you get out, the better -- for your peace of mind, career, and reputation.

Real improvement is sadly lacking from many workplaces, these days. The HR ideal, again contrary to what they say and the ideals they "paint" in their rhetoric, is the completely fungible employee.

If you haven't experienced real improvement in the workplace and in your own career before seeing an "improvement plan", you certainly aren't going to see it, after.

Well, I guess there are the occasional exceptions. Don't count on being one.

Trust your gut. Even when the resulting action you need to take is "hard". Neglecting your intuition -- real intuition; you usually know it when it hits -- ends up being much harder, in the long run.

throwme_19802• 9 years ago

I honestly think your employers have been super generous already, one ought to know what is expected of him/her and realise they shouldn't leave themselves open to criticism by abusing the trust of the employer, always be in a positive balance, put in more than you take out and make sure it gets visibility.

I wouldn't keep someone who is not performing for whatever reason, because by the time I lose trust in that person, in my mind he's pretty much out of the door. Because this is business , it's not a charity , one is responsible for their own life.

As for those who say ' company culture and fairness ' I say your competitors are already eating your lunch

mattmanser2• 9 years ago

If a boat veers off course and you don't touch the tiller, you're a bad sailor.

If an employee veers off course and you wait until you're ready to terminate them before you say anything, you're a bad manager.

And it's not always them, it's sometimes you. Have you never thrived under one manager, been reshuffled and then suffered under another?

throwme_19802• 9 years ago

Mediocrity cannot be remedied, unless you are a big company where you have dedicated departments to cater for these sort of people ( and by the way, they aim to accomplish the same outcome, just a little bit slower and more paperwork). All I am saying is, an employee has no business performing a job he/she cannot do unless he is a trainee with a good attitude. I leave this comment section with one last nugget of wisdom :

There are more skilled and deserving individuals looking for jobs that they can't get because a bad manager is holding on to a mediocre employee.

madeofpalk2• 9 years ago

What an interestingly bizarre article.

What we're all missing is how these things were presented - were the managers being unreasonable dicks in the way they talked about

"Mismatched expectations" about availability aside, what does the author expect when they're supposedly letting their team down?

I've had a number of conversations with managers were they've told me I'm letting them down and I'm always incredibly grateful for them. Sure, they're sometimes hard to hear, but I would much rather to receive feedback early so I can act on it and be better at what I do.

Also not to mention how incredibly valuable I find regular peer-review cycles (last 2 companies I've been to do these every 6 months). They've always found it super helpful to be told what I should continue doing well and what I need to improve on. Does everyone want to be the best at what they do?

mattmanser2• 9 years ago

That's not what happened though. Obviously we only see one side of it, but this reads like they suddenly accuse him of being bad, and instead of letting him self-correct, humiliate him by letting juniors micro-manage him. And gang up on him, 2 against one.

ptero3• 9 years ago

Leaving aside the clear miscommunication that led to the "needs improvement" state first, it seems to me the management did just fine after that:

1. They quickly and clearly told the employee of the problem.

2. They proposed a course of action

3. Their proposal worked (at the end they were happy with his work).

It was not pleasant for sure (for both sides, I bet), but would it be worse to say nothing and terminate him for non performance in a couple of extra months. My 2c.

ggambetta• 9 years ago

My thoughts exactly - this is a clear case of the process working as intended.

ptero3• 9 years ago

And in general I agree with other posters that the success (3) is rare. In general if one gets on the "needs improvement" plan it is time to get out on your own. In theory it doesn't have to be this way, but in practice it does.

canes123456• 9 years ago

The intended process ends with the employee being fired. The only reason to do a PIP is to cover the companies ass when they get fired or encourage them to quit. This person frankly messed up by staying at the company.

The correct way to do this if they actually want to let the employee improve:

- Ask the employee if there is anything going on with their life - Ask them how they feel they are doing and validate them - Tell them about some of your concerns - Let them explain their side of your concerns - Propose a way to improve the situation where both parties are happy - Reiterate that they are happy with the work otherwise

If the employee improves, encourage them and make them feel safe in the room. Repeat the steps if the situation does not improve. If this doesn't work start the official PIP, i.e. start slowly firing them.

soneca• 9 years ago

Yes, it worked as intended. And still the employee felt humiliated, "the damage was done" and the mutual trust was eroded. So this processo doesn't work at all, even in the best scenario. That's why the author is criticizing it I guess.

mcguire• 9 years ago

"1. They quickly and clearly told the employee of the problem."

As a general rule, if you wish to keep the employee, you should start with an informal warning that their behavior is unsatisfactory rather than a formal procedure.

BeetleB6• 9 years ago

It was not pleasant for sure (for both sides, I bet), but would it be worse to say nothing and terminate him for non performance in a couple of extra months.

Those aren't the only choices, though. I think the point of contention (which isn't clear in the article), is whether they had any conversations about it before initiating a formal process. If not, I completely agree with the author even if the author was irresponsible with his work ethic.

Think of the asymmetry. If I'm dissatisfied with my manager, can I start a formal process against him? Generally not. My only option is to have a conversation (be it with him or with his superiors).

Conversations should happen clearly before a PIP.

Shivetya• 9 years ago

I find that PIPs tend to compensate for bad management in general. By that I mean I know where everyone is on their projects and weekly checkups are a norm, if not more than once. I know a few people who have been on PIP at work, I have don't know how many don't complete it but it does tend to correct their manager as well since HR follows through with insuring that the program is followed. It is a program, HR has a check list of items that must be met each week by both manager and employee. This tends to remove some of the stress on the employee as they do see both sides have to play ball.

that being said there have been a few put on PIP I think would be better separated. I guess from this standpoint it does serve to protect company interest.

I do know that working remote introduces all new problems, the hardest I had to learn was to not let myself be distracted and I actually ended up with a personal check list that became natural after a time. I now understand how to make sure those who get more than one WFH effectively use this privileged and keep it.

jmull• 9 years ago

If you're willing and have the list in convenient form, would you share it?

dudul• 9 years ago

I'm not sure what this post is complaining about. Whatever is advocated at the end seems to be exactly what the managers at this company did.

How can the author say that they don't see the point in these plans what it appears that they were able to correct their behavior and stay at the company until it went under?

"By the end, they were quite happy with my work." Looks like the author is building this whole drama out of nothing.

qaq2• 9 years ago

OK I've being working remotely for close to 10 years, most places were very flexible about hours and taking time during the work day for family things etc. But one things none was ever flexible about is remote employees dropping off com. channels for days. I think that is clear abuse of trust and the main fear why so few jobs are remote in the first place.

maxxxxx• 9 years ago

Yes. Whenever I work remotely I make an effort to be very clear about when I'll be available and when not. I also make an effort to respond quickly to E-mails and other things just to signal that I am actually working during the times I am claiming to work.

When managing remote workers I hate it when somebody disappears and I don't know what's going on.

Remote work requires a high level of trust and responsibility from both sides so act accordingly.

andreasgonewild• 9 years ago

That would depend on the level of trust and whatever agreements you made. There are jobs like that, some people aren't into owning slaves but still need outside expertise. Which is nice, since some of us are more into living than being slaves.

qaq2• 9 years ago

Sure they are called consulting does not have much to do with the article though. Comparing slavery to having a super flexible very high paying job with only hard requirement being timely communication just shows how much some of us in tech are detached from reality.

overgard4• 9 years ago

It's kind of common sense right? (Or maybe not). If your employer trusts you to work remotely, theres an obligation to be responsive, or at the very least be clear about times when you're going to be unavailable. To me, that's just basic professionalism. These people are paying significant money for your services, you can't treat that casually.

lr4444lr• 9 years ago

The problem with posts like this is that we only get one side of the story. Bottom line, everyone - up to your top performer - "needs improvement", so the phrase is meaningless. The world isn't static, and if your employees don't demonstrate a reasonable interest in continual improvement, it's a bad sign. If am employee is operating unsatisfactorily now, objective benchmarks and timelines need to be set, not weekly meetings, unless the employee is asking for that level of feedback.

pweissbrod• 9 years ago

The key to being a successful remote worker is a foundation of trust. Its unfortunately Human Nature to assume the worst when a remote contact is unreachable when you need them . Therefore it's crucial to establish a reputation where your co-workers trust you to do the right thing connected or not. The moral of the story is not about abusive bosses or misaligned corporate goals. It's just about maintaining that crucial level of trust in the team. And it's a two-way street . Both manager and employee play a an active part. Personally I would never hire a remote worker I could not confidently trust nor would I work for a place that didn't implicitly trust me

Edit - I've been a remote worker for over 10 years and will likely continue as long as I possibly can

codyb• 9 years ago

I find managing upwards is the best way to deal with these situations. I've had micromanagers before and no one enjoys that random "hey wheres X at?" question so what I do is give status updates every so often. I avoid the stressful question entirely this way.

It makes your managers life easier and yours as well and allows you to give updates on your time instead of theirs.

This works remotely and in person. I work my face off a lot of times so it's valuable to turn the tables and not get caught in the middle of something with a question that can take me out of work flow.

At the end of the day, managing people is very hard. Transperency works very well for me.

e402• 9 years ago

I can't stress how good the above comment is at dealing with this. As a long time manager, people that behave this way are a total joy to manage.

Also, if you have a smartphone and your company uses slack, there is no reason to be unreachable, unless you are in a deadzone of cell reception or driving. But, if you practice the above, it shouldn't be an issue. For example, a post to #OOO: hey, running an errand for the next hour, offline.

munin2• 9 years ago

This only works if your management remembers your status updates.

christophilus• 9 years ago

Yep. This is sage advice, I think even for in-office workers. Visibility and clear communication to your managers is critical to success.

empath752• 9 years ago

If you get to the point that you're on a personal improvement plan, you should immediately look for other work. There are no circumstances in which it will turn around.

crusso4• 9 years ago

There are no circumstances in which it will turn around

Note that you used the passive voice, as though the circumstances are completely out of the employee's control.

empath752• 9 years ago

They more or less are. They've already decided they want to get rid of you. If they actually wanted to keep you around they'd have had a bunch of more casual conversations about what you need to do.

hydrogen18• 9 years ago

They are. Why anyone is willing to adopt the delusion that a "personal improvement plan" is about improving anything I cannot understand. The circumstances are far less severe and consequential, but I can only compare it to a political dissident in a totalitarian state being tortured so long that he eventually believes he was undermining some righteous, just society with his actions.

You shouldn't take it as a personal insult or grievance against you, but the "personal improvement plan" is what HR came up with when your boss requested that you be let go. If you've committed a crime or violated some policy (no matter how trivial) you can be let go immediately. But in most of the United States, it is simply a bad decision (financially) to just let someone go. It is much better to have some documentation of their inadequacy. Hence the weekly meetings.

The person conducting these reviews (be it your boss, or someone else) is probably bored out of their mind that they must participate in these meetings. The phrase "what did I do to deserve this?" probably goes through their head each time they complete one. They don't care about your performance at all at this point. They may provide an objective review, or they may just copy in some boilerplate. Something that sounds great like "fails to meet established goals". It doesn't really matter.

Again, it is completely pointless to take any of this process as any sort of rational feedback. At this point, the decision was already made that you need to go. They just need some documentation before you are let go. I would take the fact that you are being let go as feedback, but stop there. The "personal improvement plan" isn't about you. It never has been.

If you're in a financial situation where you can, just resign. If you can't, that is understandable. But no one involved is going to be upset if you just resign. I'd offer 2 weeks, but they'll likely just counter with an immediate resignation. If anything, everyone will be at ease.

Sir_Substance2• 9 years ago

Note that you used the passive voice, as though the circumstances are completely out of the employee's control.

If you've been put on a PIP, it means your employer has decided if your work doesn't get better, they're going to fire you.

Provided you haven't been phoning it in, this means you have to give an unsustainable amount in order to reach what they want from you. Seeing as how that's unsustainable, you're going to fail eventually.

These processes aren't really designed to help rectify the issue, they're designed to cover the companies arse against union action.

jghn• 9 years ago

This is untrue. It usually will not turn around.

About 15 years ago I was put on one, and it wound up working out. I've known a couple of other people who have beat the PIP as well. In the vast majority of cases though you are right. As time has gone on I've realized that the chances are so low it's not worth someone trying to beat it.

raverbashing• 9 years ago

Agreed

And I guess people are right. It might be that, in the majority of cases, the person will be let go.

But don't go without a "fight" (which I mean, trying to prove your worth, and improving yourself, and not by antagonizing the bosses) if you think it's worth it

acjohnson553• 9 years ago

I strongly disagree with this advice.

If it gets to the point of a PIP, you're in very hot water at most places. But that does not necessarily mean you are going out the door.

If you care about keeping your job, step one is to ascertain whether your management is truly willing to invest in working it out, or simply going through the motions. It's time to level with them and have some very probing conversations on what's going on to get all the cards on the table.

Most managers do not want to fire their reports, if they can help it. But a PIP is often the last breakpoint before they have to do the deed. And to be honest, even managers that want to make the PIP work often don't really know how to. So, yes, it's hard for both sides, but it's not hopeless.

If you decide management is being sincere about their desire to keep you, here's my advice:

- Stop whatever it is you think you need to do to do your job, listen to what they're asking of you, change your behavior, and ask for feedback when you think you've done well. A PIP is a sign that implicit expectations and communication have failed, so you need to fall back on being unnaturally explicit.

- Prepare for a rift in your personal relationship with your manager that is going to take some time to repair. It's likely a very awkward situation for both of you, and you are going to feel attacked. No easy way around that. Even if you succeed at getting out of the doghouse, the rift will persist until you start to rebuild the 2-way trust.

It's a bad spot to be in, and it's only going to work out if both parties believe it can work and are truly committed to doing some hard reflection and behavioral change.

sseveran• 9 years ago

This largely depends on the company. Once you have been PIPed often transfer options are limited. Personally by the time I get to the point where I am going to PIP someone I have already invested significant time and energy trying to help them through 1 on 1s, getting input from my boss, and trying to work with all tools at my disposal. If I need to get HR involved I have already made up my mind that they will no longer work for me. Once HR is involved in many ways what happens next is out of a managers hands. I view the creation of the PIP as the train leaving the station. The tracks lead to a specific outcome.

All that said I suppose if things really did change I would approach what happened next with an open mind.

In at least one company I worked at having PIP in your file meant that it would be impossible to switch teams ever again. What manager wants the potential liability.

Also if there are is stack ranking with a curve people are going to have to be PIPed just to make the numbers work (not justifying it, just saying it happens). Having watched people be hired on to teams for the sole purpose of being let go it is really important to know what is actually going on.

BeetleB6• 9 years ago

Most managers do not want to fire their reports, if they can help it. But a PIP is often the last breakpoint before they have to do the deed.

As someone said, it varies from company to company. Many managers treat it as a step to firing. And if you listen to employees who've been through it, many will have stories about how unfair it was - unfair in that others who had worse "infractions" were given a pass. To them, it was clear the boss just wanted them out of the team and was using some pretext (not the real reason) to get rid of them. Very often, that pretext is not maintaining appropriate work hours.

From Netlfix's former HR manager:

One Netflix manager requested a PIP for a quality assurance engineer named Maria, who had been hired to help develop our streaming service. The technology was new, and it was evolving very quickly. Maria’s job was to find bugs. She was fast, intuitive, and hardworking. But in time we figured out how to automate the QA tests. Maria didn’t like automation and wasn’t particularly good at it. Her new boss (brought in to create a world-class automation tools team) told me he wanted to start a PIP with her.
I replied, “Why bother? We know how this will play out. You’ll write up objectives and deliverables for her to achieve, which she can’t, because she lacks the skills. Every Wednesday you’ll take time away from your real work to discuss (and document) her shortcomings. You won’t sleep on Tuesday nights, because you’ll know it will be an awful meeting, and the same will be true for her. After a few weeks there will be tears. This will go on for three months. The entire team will know. And at the end you’ll fire her. None of this will make any sense to her, because for five years she’s been consistently rewarded for being great at her job—a job that basically doesn’t exist anymore. Tell me again how Netflix benefits?

https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr

GrinningFool• 9 years ago

Years ago I was put on a PIP. A year later at the same company I was promoted. The things I learned about managing my time while working towards the PIP goals still serve me well today.

I know others who have had similar experiences.

Whether or not it will turn around depends both on management's sincerity in providing the PIP and the employee's willingness to accept that he or she actually needs to change something.

paulsutter• 9 years ago

When an employee isn't working out, it's almost always because the role is a bad fit and not because they have deficiencies as an engineer or as a person.

That's why performance improvement programs are so degrading and insulting. The person doesn't need to change, they need to be in a role that's better suited to their abilities, temperament, or whatever is causing the mismatch. Often that role is in a different company and if so then great because everyone is better off and that's a good thing.

bitshepherd2• 9 years ago

I've been on both ends of the spectrum, from being PIP'd out the door to never hear from them again -- after burning bridges to be there and dedicating years to the mission -- to getting multiple base salary increases in a year and "keep doing what you're doing, you're definitely getting noticed".

Getting fired is definitely not the end of the world. In fact, I'd say it's more a measure of the employer/employee compatibility. The hardest part of the interview is determining "do I want to count on this guy/gal/team/company every day?" and sometimes it takes getting shown the door to realize that the answer was "no" all along. From my perspective, if you've never been fired, you've never tested the boundaries of your employability.

hiddenkrypt• 9 years ago

Unfortunately, the hard part of every subsequent interview with other employers is "So what happened at company X? You were fired, right?"

I've been through what the author is describing, but in an on-site office position. It's horrid. They're exactly right on how these processes poison all other interactions. My boss would call me in to ask if I was going to the company picnic, but the history meant that every "Hey, can you see me in my office real quick?" was a gut-wrenching terror moment, certain that I was getting fired or told off again, or something.

bitshepherd2• 9 years ago

It's easier to deal with than you think. Don't outright admit to a firing when the question comes up. I'm not saying make something up on the fly, because they'll smell the bullshit, but think of how you can spin your termination in a positive light. Leaving because a project was completed/cancelled or company priorities changed is generally seen positively, even if the truth is you were fired from one of those jobs for being incompatible with the rigors of the role.

If you're just coming out of a firing, the worst thing you can do is have a mea culpa moment of clarity when you're negotiating for your bottom line. You'll get the old standard, "thanks for your time", and away they go to the next person, who may have also been fired, but bent the truth in their favor to get the job.

fizixer2• 9 years ago

Slightly off-topic anecdote:

I've been having conversations with a really smart friend of mine (PhD in one of the sciences, and fairly good with programming) who decided to repurpose himself as a software guy, got a job a couple years ago at one of the tech giants (not the big four though).

Everytime I talk to him, he expresses annoyance that his team and lead are dogmatic about CS principles and want him to modify his programming practices. To give a few examples, he thinks being against using goto in C/C++ is dogmatic, and that there is no need to develop a testing framework until the software is developed, among a bunch of other things. All this while he piled on at the rate of about 1000 lines a month into the codebase (he started this project from scratch, surprise surprise).

I have been trying to convince him of the need to develop software engineering skills and that it's more about lessons learned from history than being dogmatic about anything.

Recently he started expressing interest in climbing the corporate ladder and becoming a manager or something. Good for him, I didn't point out anything, but to me, he felt like one of those types who are more interested in their career bottomline than in developing good principles and practices of the work they do (something that disappointed me coming from him based on the person I knew for many years).

Just recently I heard he got awarded for the software he developed. (For context, the company is a tech giant but not mainly-software. I was very surprised to find out that they don't have an internal document or guide on coding conventions, hence a developer gets to do whatever he/she likes).

Point of the story? not much except that it's another data point supporting my cynicism towards short-termist and superficial attitude of majority of people, especially those involved in the corporate culture.

Because I can see where this is going. This guy would want to become some kind of manager as soon as he can, and hand over the development to someone else. If that someone else has good software engineering skills, he/she would be able to poke many holes in this codebase, and/or would be put in charge of fixing the bugs (likely due to bad quality and hasty implementation of the code). This will delay and slow down the progress of the project, because fixing those bugs would involve fixing the quality of the code through heavy refactoring, etc. And then this same manager would get to claim "When I was developing, the project's pace was great, and now you guys have started slacking off and creating lots of bugs".

jstimpfle• 9 years ago

he thinks being against using goto in C/C++ is dogmatic, and that there is no need to develop a testing framework until the software is developed

The important thing missing here - context. There are perfectly valid situations where your friend could be right.

he felt like one of those types who are more interested in their career bottomline than in developing good principles and practices of the work they do (something that disappointed me coming from him based on the person I knew for many years).

Maybe he wants to become a manager with good developped principles?

Of course you know your friend much better than we do. It's hard for outsiders to judge the situation.

fizixer2• 9 years ago

There are perfectly valid situations where your friend could be right.

I didn't say he thinks banning goto is dogmatic (and I never heard him say that his team completely disallows any use of it). You could be against goto and still be okay with its occasional use.

He seemed to be of the opinion that there is no reason to be against goto in the first place, because he never felt goto's use hurting his productivity. (and his use of goto, the way he explained it, definitely was more complicated than the rare cases where I think you could let it slide, e.g., the way it's used in the linux kernel code to get to the bottom of a function in case of failure, etc).

And why should we be against goto in the first place? Unfortunately, you cannot answer this question in one sentence, or a paragraph. "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" is not a theorem that has a proof. You have to read about it, and ideally, you have to experience what spaghetti code feels like, and what a goto-free codebase feels like. If you're not willing to take such a dive, you would never find out the answer. And if you have opinions in favor of goto without taking such a dive, don't be surprised if I lower my opinion about you as a scientist/engineer.

Maybe he wants to become a manager with good developped principles?

And call me a negative nancy but your chances of developing good practices have diminished if your bad coding practices are reinforced through internal awards and the like. And I have no doubt his contributions may have felt significant to the higher ups enough to decide this deserves an award. But only in the short term. If this code gives problems in the next quarter or something, do they go back and review if the hasty implementation in the last quarter and liberal use of goto had anything to do with it? Likely not if your company doesn't even have a coding-conventions document.

ryanmarsh• 9 years ago

At this point in my career I've realized that if you're told your performance "needs improvement" and someone isn't assigned to mentor you and help you perform better then you should start looking for a new job.

Not apprenticing you is like saying "you suck, fix yourself". No. That's not the culture you want to be a part of.

I've been that guy. There have been times someone helped me and I grew and it was awesome. There have also been times I wasn't helped and there was a ton of unnecessary thrashing. It's just bad leadership. My guess is the work environment is maybe a little toxic in other ways too.

elmerland• 9 years ago

I'm confused about this article. On the one side I agree with his point on constant and timely feedback. On the other side I disagree with his dismissal of yearly reviews and weekly meetings.

You need these more formal environments to quantify the performance over a longer period of time. In doing so you can correct for biases, and get feedback not just from the manager but from everyone you work with. Additionally you can aggregate the data company wide to see patterns and hopefully try something new. I'm sure plenty of people do it wrong and that might be a different conversation.

Maybe what the performance improvement was missing was a human touch. Giving feedback without caring for the person can feel cold and calculating.

CydeWeys15• 9 years ago

It's also not clear to me how pay-for-performance and promote-for-performance is supposed to work without some kind of systematized performance review system. And I will say that, at least in my personal experience, pay-and-promote-for-performance is hugely important in getting the most out of your software engineers.

walshemj5• 9 years ago

Performance based pay and the whole hr infrastructure around it is designed to lower the pay quanta it has < 1% to do with rewarding performance.

whiddershins• 9 years ago

I completely and intuitively understand what this employee is reacting to, and I think the it is hard to articulate why the approach his managers took is not great.

In this situation the managers could have gotten the same exact result without making the employee feel humiliated. Something along the lines of "stuff is falling through the cracks, let's do a meeting to touch base once a week so we can make sure everything is going well."

In those once a week meetings, the managers could provide positive and negative feedback in a balanced way.

However, once you've told an employee they are being "a prima Donna" and basically you need fixing, every meeting is another denigrating experience. That whole PIP idea makes sense for a paper trail justifying termination, but is otherwise terrible for morale.

Edit: in all relationships, professional or personal, try to keep your feedback specific and impersonal. "We need a reply to emails within 24 hours" is much better than "you have a communication problem." "Don't yell at John during meetings." Is way better than "you lose your temper too often."

Etc.

notadoc• 9 years ago

Everyone "needs improvement"

Yes, even if you're the top performer or you think you're the smartest person on your team.

walshemj5• 9 years ago

yep give me any employee and any company's performance management system and I could have them on a pip inside of 9 months

tome2• 9 years ago

Ah, Cardinal Richelieu. Thanks for stopping by.

curtis• 9 years ago

I feel like many of the commenters here are missing the point of the post.

My takeaway from pondering this today is pretty straightforward:
Talk to your people. Don’t wait. Do it now, and never stop. If they are meeting expectations, thank them regularly. If they aren’t meeting your needs or the needs of others in the company, tell them now. Don’t wait until you find yourself identifying “patterns”.

and then a little later:

If you can identify an incompatibility like this early enough, it doesn’t even have to be rancorous. Incompatibility happens. Nobody needs to feel like a failure over it.

When the author is relating his own experience, he's not saying there was no problem to be addressed. What he's saying is he thinks that situation (and many others like it in our industry) can be handled better, and he wraps up the post by taking about what some of those ways might be.

hosh3• 9 years ago

Agreed. I am learning something called "crucial conversations" right now. These are conversations where opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run strong. People have an aversion to having these conversations. It usually ends in silence or violence.

The book I am drawing this from claims that handling it is a skill that is teachable and learnable. I have been trying to apply what little I have learned so far and it had been working way better than what I have been using.

unfocused8282• 9 years ago

(Using an alt account for obvious reasons)

One thing I wish that I had been prepared for out of university is that there is just a lot less feedback on how good of a job you're doing. Nobody grades your work and there is a skill to getting specific feedback on your performance.

Asking "how am I doing?" at a weekly or fortnightly 1-on-1 isn't going to get you anything useful. You need to ask someone you're working with directly and frame a question in terms of situation-action-?impact?. So "When you submitted that PR and I pointed out two cases that I thought could use additional tests, was that useful?"

tuxxy• 9 years ago

When I was 20, I was a lead engineer on a project with an upcoming deadline. There was a disagreement on how to implement something. As the lead engineer on the project, it was my job to break these "ties" so to speak, especially in the wake of a deadline. I thought about and made my decision. When the next meeting about this disagreement occurred, I informed them of my decision. I expressed my frustrations in the decision in solidarity with my team (there was no perfect solution), but said we don't have any more time to budget for this issue.

I was calm, but assertive. I also express myself whilst talking by using my hands. Apparently, the older engineer was upset and informed my manager about my "tone". My manager was in the meeting and disagreed that my tone was bad and said it was up to me if I wanted to apologize.

So I did. Even though I felt I was perfectly fine, I apologized. The reason why I did was for team cohesion. If it means that I can work well with that engineer again and not have them hold something over me, I'll suck up my pride and apologize for something that I feel I didn't do.

hosh3• 9 years ago

I wrote this on a thread off of the original blog post from Coraline. I mentioned the content of a book called "Corporate Confidential" in which a former HR professional talks about how corporations uses performance reviews as a means to legally fire someone because they cannot fire someone for the real reason. I said it was cynical though others viewed it otherwise.

This past week, our small team had brought in an executive coach that works with the material from Crucial Conversations. A wiki summary was circulated around. When I read it, I knew it applied to what was going on with our team as well as personal relationships. Crucial conversations are moments when opinions vary, the stakes are high, and emotions run strong. Being able to have crucial conversations and handle them well allows someone to be effective, influential, and helps out the team and community tremendously. The follow-on book is called Crucial Accountability, which teaches how to deal with people who breaks promises and violates expectations.

So I stand by what I said about the cynical view of "Corporate Confidential". Using performance reviews to legally fire someone might sound like a case of corporate greed and that is true to some extent. In addition, I think people are -not- having those crucial conversations. It is easier to plot a way to ease someone out than to have the crucial conversation about what is really going on. Taking that frame with Coraline's story: if seems to me neither Corolaine, nor the github manager was able to have crucial conversations. In some ways, Coraline admitted to it in her blog post.

On a larger scale: Github had had various controversies. I wonder how much of that came from not handling crucial conversations? People hold their silence until they can't take it any more and it goes from silence to violence. Very pubilcly.

These crucial conversations isn't just about managers being able to take to employees and holding them accountable. It is also about employees being able to talk to managers and holding them accountable too. It is about speaking your truth -- adding meaning into the shared pool -- while still having mutual respect and keeping a friend.

It is something I am deep diving now. I'm tired of the merry-go-rounds where nothing seems to move forward, both in my professional and personal relationships. The little bit I am grasping from this seems to be working.

TheRealDunkirk• 9 years ago

My biggest takeaway from Crucial Conversations is that you have to be watching out for when a conversation turns crucial. This can sneak up on you, especially in business. If you're having an argument with your significant other, it's usually obvious, because of the emotions involved. But we tend to let things slide with our colleagues, and people are _usually_ more reserved. If you miss it, then it has to come back, and it always comes back harder. If you can recognize when a (ongoing) conversation (first) turns critical, and handle it appropriately at the time, it can prevent needing to be on a PIP.

Of course, some managers and reports are never going to get along well, and you may just be in the crosshairs of ambitious jerk with a personal vendetta for a perceived slight.

Ah, but I digress.

unfocused8282• 9 years ago

As someone on a PIP who is quite sure the problem is on my side, not the company's, I wish there were mentors that a software engineer could hire to help you figure out how to debug problems with his/her job performance.

mc32• 9 years ago

"I realize if this is the most humiliating thing I’ve had to deal, this puts me in a fairly privileged category"

Not necessarily.

Jay-Z once said, having grown up in the projects, dealing dope as well as getting shot at, etc. none of that had been the most difficult thing in his life. The most difficult thing in his life was dealing with personal turmoil in his marriage.

People need to drop that thought that if you have money you are "privileged" and therefore any issue that affects them mentally are really non-issues in comparison.

"it is difficult to see how these “personal improvement programs” for a disappointing employee can ever be a constructive force. At best they seem misguided. At worst they appear to be a cynical HR ploy to save face before terminating an employee."

That is for sure. If your boss were to ever lose faith in your ability, seek reassignment. There is little chance of recovery --and the cost of recovery, where possible is too great. There will be eternal doubt in their mind. It's the nature of the mind.

overgard4• 9 years ago

I agree that PIPs are mostly just HR covering themselves in firing an employee, but this just reads like a long list of excuses for a person not performing their job. Its at-will employment for both sides, the company isn't obligated to care about your personal issues. If your work output isn't good, it kinda doesn't matter if you have kids and your manager is younger -- theyre giving you money for your work not because theyre your friend.

I think people that fall into this mindset should realize that most of the kumbaya things companies say are pleasantries. Employment is a business situation and its healthier to not get confused about that.

Consultant32452• 9 years ago

I had a contract with a household name theme park company that is known for treating its employees like disposable widgets. It made headlines a while back by laying off tons of people and only keeping some on to train their offshore replacements. That kinda place. So while I was there, there was this one guy in the department who was almost never at work. He was always "working from home." Occasionally he would turn in some work, but there was no way to really justify his position. I came to find out that his wife was having serious medical problems and he had been spending most of the last year at the hospital 24/7. Everyone on the team, including the manager, just picked up the slack and not one word was ever said about him or his (lack of) productivity.

I'm not sure I really had a point here, because this isn't about a company's false kumbayas. However, even at a big megacorp people will sometimes take care of one another when the going gets rough.

overgard4• 9 years ago

That is no doubt a great thing. I'm not trying to suggest that workplace bonds and friendships are meaningless, just that people need to have appropriate expectations about what the relationship with the company fundamentally is. Theres no doubt space for compassion, it just shouldn't be viewed as an entitlement.

nate_meurer• 9 years ago

What's with the fake obfuscation? Any reason to avoid saying simply "I worked for Disney"?

mnm1• 9 years ago

I disagree on the yearly reviews. I find that only companies that had them gave yearly raises. So while I don't particularly like the idea of being reviewed, you're going to be informally anyway, so you might as well get a raise for it. A lot of people, myself included, have a very difficult time approaching the topic of raises and other salary negotiations and a set, yearly review helps alleviate that. And if the company is going to give a yearly raise, whether there is an official review process or not, you can bet money that anyone getting a raise has been 'reviewed,' even if only in the boss's mind.

kafkaesq• 9 years ago

Anytime they say that -- what they really mean is that they only way for you to "improve" is to GTFO.

Another (not so gentle reminder) to follow this poster's advice, and make sure to always have a decent emergency fund saved up, at all times.

So that when something like this does happen -- and it has happened to nearly all the best people I know, at one point or another, that they are told, in one way or another (either directly, in "secret code", aka PIP): "Look, we don't think this is working out" -- you can be prepared to say the natural, adult, self-assured thing: "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Do you want me to agree to separate from you, or do you want to separate from me -- and if so, on what terms"?

Because really, no one has time for soul-killing head games like PIP.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14776772

nerdponx3• 9 years ago

I've been this person. I was not only somewhat surprised, I also felt betrayed. It was apparent that complaints had been building for some time, but I heard very little of those complaints in the form of direct feedback. It was only in hindsight that I realized my coworkers had been subtly dropping hints for a while.

It sucked. Then again, I actually did kind of suck at my job, too. So maybe the real lesson here is that sucking at your job sucks, not just for you, but for your managers and coworkers too (albeit for different reasons).

mulmen2• 9 years ago

Sounds like your manager dropped the ball. Management makes the big bucks to avoid these situations, not pass blame to the people they fail. Firing an employee should reflect at least as badly on management as it does on the employee. Why did they hire you in the first place? Are their hiring policies broken? Why are you expected to read minds?

nerdponx3• 9 years ago

I've asked myself similar questions, and it's good to hear that they aren't unreasonable ones.

Readers might be interested to know that I actually made it through the PIP period and kept my job. When a wave of layoffs came, however, I was let go. I am sure that having been on the PIP contributed to their decision to cut me.

nopzor• 9 years ago

I think this is too one sided.

In these types of situations you generally have to allocate some of the blame to the company, instead of the employee.

Sure, the employee might not be performing to expectations, but why were they hired in the first place?

Im not saying that in some situations the employee isn't clearly to "blame", but I think it's important to hold management accountable too.

On being the employee who “needs improvement”

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