Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) What is it? Do you need one? And how to ensure you don’t!
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If there’s one thing that companies want to avoid, its losing talented employees for reasons that could have been remedied with the right intervention at the right time.??
Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) aim to do just that, by identifying skill or training gaps, setting clear expectations for an associate's future conduct, and highlighting specific areas of performance deficiencies.?
So what is a PIP??
At its core, a performance improvement plan highlights the problems and roadblocks within an employee’s workflow and the possible ways to tackle them.?
When do you need to put an employee on a PIP??
So a PIP could be required for a number of reasons, namely:?
Although when structured well, a PIP could be beneficial to the employee, there are some things that employers could prioritize to avoid going down the PIP route in the first place:?
1. Set Clear Goals?
By providing clarity, you enable the employee to fully comprehend what their goals and objectives are. The more precise the goals are, the easier completing them should be.?
2. Communication?
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Employees and managers alike should be able to talk freely about their current difficulties as well as how they plan to achieve their goals. Managers should provide clarity to the employee concerning any challenges or road blocks the employee is facing. A clear line of communication will ensure that problems do not keep building up over time?
3. Regular check-ins?
Regular check-ins provide structure, but more importantly they provide a consistent direction, preventing employees from going off track. A managers vision or goals may change over time, and it is important that employees and managers stay in sync in terms of their collective goals and vision.?
4. Root Causes?
Employers should try to identify the root cause of what could be causing their employee to underperform. Could it be a personal issue affecting their professional life? An aspect of their working environment that is hindering their progress? Identifying the cause of these issues could also help employers formulate the PIP more efficiently if it finally does come down to that.?
5. Structure?
Providing employees with a pre-defined structure of what is expected of them within a given time frame can help them clearly understand their goals and potentially help them pre-emptively identify any challenges they may face before it begins to affect their performance.?
In conclusion, while PIPs can be a useful tool for an employer, as the old adage goes “Prevention is better than cure”, so employers should put always try to use a PIP as a last resort, as at the end of the day, no one likes being told that their performance is not up to par.? Keeping that in mind, we will go into more details about how to structure a well-designed PIP, as well as the benefits of the same in our future blogs, so stay tuned!?
Do you feel that a PIP can have the required outcome that is mutually beneficial to both employer and employee? Let us know in the comments below!?