Aren’t performance improvement plan’s really meant to give the employee a task that’s representative of what they are failing to do, so they will fail, and then you can fire them with proof of poor performance?
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Correct.
I know exactly one person who ever survived that process. I know a lot who were fired and found the whole process to be humiliating from start to finish.
I got a PIP and my boss couldn't explain what it was for and what I needed to do to improve. So yeah, they're bullshit and I won $10k.
Kinda hilarious given that the name "performance improvement plan" explicitly says it is a plan, so it really needs to tell you, you know, what to do.
Good job getting that bag. Fuck em for treating people like disposable equipment.
Exactly. They exist to give legal cover so that the risk of wrongful termination lawsuits is minimized for the employer
Yeah, honestly, PIPs are dogshit in most cases. I'm for removing them as a barrier to prevent firing.
If you're going on a PIP, you're going to end up fired anyhow.
Double-plus-good assessment!
The articles keep going "CEO Dorsey says", probably because no one knows what Block is.
On that note, what is Block? They own a bunch of small companies like Square and Cashapp? If so, does this apply to those employees?
They have 12.000 employees. Like yes they do have a couple of recognizable products - mostly Square and Tidal.
But still, 12.000 people is a lot. One more case of overhiring for imaginary growth.
Did Block acquire Square?
According to the wiki, they started it as their original product. And later acquired Tidal, and some other services I'm not familiar with (Afterpay, Cashapp, Weebly)
No, Block was square. It's the first damn sentence.
Afterpay is an installment payment plan for online purchases, cash app is a direct payment app like Venmo/Paypal, and Weebly is a website builder.
No. Square was first, created cash (or cash app), and bought a bunch of other dumb shit. Eventually cash decided it wanted to be its own company and did their own shit, and jack allowed it because he’s a fucking idiot moron.
I worked there for a decade. Quit in 2020
Blockhead renames Square to Block.
Beatings will continue until morale improves. Same old bullshit.
I get the impression that most people don’t know how performance improvement is handled at most tech companies. The PIP isn’t the start of a plan to help people grow and course correct from some bad behavior. It’s usually the end of the line.
If you’re not doing something well, or you’re pissing off your coworkers, the main way this gets handled is through quarterly reviews, 360 feedback, goal setting with your manager, etc.
If several quarters have gone by, and you’re still getting trash feedback, that’s when HR gets contacted and you get put on a formal PIP.
This sucks because you can have a toxic employee that, for example, bullies others and is difficult to work with. You can work with them for a couple quarters and document the performance problems, and if they stills don’t turn the ship around after 2 or 3 quarterly reviews, you then need to keep them around for another quarter or two on a PIP.
And all that time they’re making everyone else miserable. Other people in the office shouldn’t have to suffer simply because someone couldn’t stop acting like an ass after already being reprimanded for many months.
You keep presenting this "ideal" PIP. I've never seen one be successful, and I've repeatedly seen a significant increase in them before layoffs.
Every PIP I've seen has been full of BS. Had one engineer who saved the company tens of millions of dollars for the current year, and whose effort in those 3 months also enabled the company to prevent renewing a contract that would've cost tens of millions per year, for 8 years. (He was asked in August if this could be done, had to be done by Dec 20).
Less than a year later he was PIP'd because people didn't like that he was amazing at predicting risks - his 360s said he was pessimistic and negative. Yet his predictions were correct 90%+ of the time. I hated to lose him, he prevented so many issues and costs.
I’m sure there are folks who abuse the system. I’m just speaking from my experience and what I have observed with my peers. When folks in my org are on a PIP, they’re almost always people that are widely known to be a problem.
Moreover, when I’m talking to my fellow directors / managers at my company about people in their orgs that are on PIPs, those are almost always people that my org constantly complains about.
The experience of one person doesn’t reflect the behavior of the entire industry. But I feel like I’ve collected enough experience and a broad enough peer network to know that my experience is not uncommon at all. I’ve heard these stories a LOT over beers.
Again, after nearly 30 years in enterprise, I've repeatedly seen them expanded just before layoffs.
And 360s are nothing more than popularity contests. They're ripe for abuse.
25 years in enterprise here. Different experiences I guess.
I’ve always liked 360s where people get to nominate the folks on their review panel. Those reviews still have a bias, but it’s arguably toward the person being reviewed since they’re picking their own reviewers.
But if they’ve picked their own jury, and still got broadly called-out for being a pain in the butt, that’s not a great sign. If your best working relationships are also bad working relationships - yikes.
In my experience a PIP is just a nice way to say it’s not working out, go ahead and start looking elsewhere, you can stay on a while longer until you do find something else. With all of the tech layoffs over the last 18 months, they might as well just dispense with PIPs too.
My hot take, Dorsey‘s messaging around this was shit. People are very much still being given feedback from their managers and are building out ways to address performance problems.
The primary avenue for growth and addressing performance problems is your reoccurring review with your manager and or 360 reviews.
If you’re on a formal PIP filed with HR, that’s often the last straw at most companies. There are companies that are exceptions to this rule, but it usually means you’ve already not met the feedback you’ve been given during your normal quarterly or biannual reviews.
When my colleagues and I put people on a PIP logged with HR, it is truly the last straw. It’s been people who repeatedly bully coworkers, don’t show up to work, say they’re going to do something then never follow through, etc. It’s people that many others in the company routinely complain about. And despite being given repeated feedback during reviews, and guidance on how to grow, they don’t change.
It basically the “cover your ass” phase when you document everything so when the company does fire them, there’s proof that they don’t violate any laws.
Exactly. Although, most halfway decent people managers have already documented those things have given that feedback in writing during normal review periods.
I feel like the real reason for a PIP is that most people managers really dread laying people off. Even if that person at risk is super incompetent or a piece of shit. Knowing that you’re putting someone’s financial and or medical stability at risk is a big deal.
The PIP is often there so you’re giving it one last try, and most importantly, not doing it alone. You have HR to consult with on making some tough decisions.
Although, to Dorsey’s point, this often means that a well documented problem employee is allowed to make the workplace miserable for another 3-6 months. And that’s not fair to everyone else.
We’ve all worked with that one toxic person who makes us ask “why is this person still here?” It’s not uncommon for that person to be riding along on a PIP for a bit. PIPs are kept private because people gossip. If more ICs knew who was on a PIP and why, less people would be up in arms about what Dorsey is doing.
All too true. If the person is making other people unhappy that’s a bigger problem that’ll snowball.
360s are a pox. Turns reviews into popularity contests.
Not to say soft skills aren't important, in fact I'd say they're a crucial skill, possibly more important than anything else in general.
As for PIPs, I've only ever seen them used as a way to get rid of someone rather than lay them off (I've been in enterprise IT since mid-90's).
In theory they're a good idea, but so easily misused.
deleted
Jack is an ass. Wow.
Lot of people reacting to the headline without understanding how shit PIPs are in 90% of companies.
Not to cheer too hard for the rich but this is step towards company leadership having to actually pull their weight, which means maybe some 8ncrwaeed union sympathy and other effects. Doubtful that actually works all the way up, but less shitty middle managers feels okay.
IHMO, the phrase “PIP” is pretty bad.
Most actual performance improvement stuff is done during regular quarterly or biannual reviews. If you get put on a proper “PIP” that really just means “I’ve been talking to you for several quarters about your performance problems, things have not changed, now I’ve contacted HR, and this is the last opportunity you have to turn this ship around.”
PIP is code for "we are now gathering evidence so when we fire you, we have proof we had cause if you try to sue us"
Yeah, although if the manager has been doing their job, all of that stuff is already written down and documented in quarter reviews, 360’s, and goal setting.
My guess is that Dorsey is basically just saying, we already have months of documentation. Adding another 3 or 6 months is probably just going to drag things out and continue to piss of the people who are struggling to work with the problematic person.
Yep, instead of you being laid off.
I've seen the increase in PIPs right before layoffs numerous times.
Edit: spelling
Having worked at square (before it became the joke it is now), I saw some people get pipped. One person survived, and this person used it to get diagnosed with adhd, get treatment, and turn shit around. She eventually became a manager, then a director, and is up for a job as Ciso at a different company.
So it’s possible to survive a pip, just fairly rare.
I am so glad I don’t work there now, seeing what it’s become makes me really sad. If you saw the news a couple months ago about the 18h+ outage they had, it was from software I worked on. They subverted guardrails I specifically wrote to prevent them from rolling out 100k iptables rules to every host, which is what happened.