eSign Performance Improvement Plan Made Easy

E signature performance improvement plan

[Music] to talk about the 11 mistakes that employees make when they receive a performance improvement plan or a pip and how you can survive your pip using the hidden secrets that I'm going to discuss in this video so the first thing that we're going to cover is understanding the pip process and the real issues behind the pimp next I'm going to show you what to do when you do receive a pip and how you can handle that after that I'm going to show you how you can respond during the course of the pip so that you can protect your job and finally what you can do at the end of the pip or at least by the end of the pip to be able to either save your job or to move on successfully so the pip process many many employees make the mistake that they assume that they've done nothing wrong and that all they have to do is continue doing what they're doing in order to prove that they are performing their job adequately well the problem here is that when you've received a performance improvement plan somebody is already saying you are not performing up to standards so the hidden secret here is to be proactive don't wait for the don't wait for the end of the process start at the beginning of the process show that you are meeting expectations from day one and showing that we're going to go over some more of these secrets showing how to do that is critical because you need to you need to be documenting what you're doing so the end of the process you can say I've done everything that you've asked me to do what is there left that I can do to make my performance satisfactory so another mistake that employees make is assuming that your boss is just being a jerk or is doing something illegal it's similar to the first mistake accepted here the performance improvement plans are sometimes given to employees who do need to improve their performance the hidden secret is to look to a third person a third party and see what they think about the process get your advice from somebody else understand what you need to do in order to meet the terms of this pip having somebody who can help you through this process is critical whether that's an attorney a trusted friend or even a colleague that you may not have a deep relationship with but who can give you an independent evaluation of your work relying on the idea that your boss is a jerk or doing something illegal can end up being a huge downside for you because what you do is you end up at the end of this having not reacted to what's going on and therefore you're trapped in the PIP you haven't done something to be able to get out of the PIP another mistake that employees make all the time is believing that HR is somehow their advocate and if there's an unfair pip that HR is going to do something about it the problem with expecting HR or anybody else to do anything about the PIP is that's not their job they are not required to do anything on behalf of employees other than run payroll usually and to administer benefits they are otherwise they're entirely to represent the interests of management the people who are giving you the PIP these are the HR is there not to protect you it is there to protect management so my hidden secret is to be your own best advocate don't wait for HR find somebody else who can help you if you need that if that's an attorney or a trusted friend but make sure that HR is going it make sure that you're not trusting what HR says and that by the end of this process you can convince HR that they should be on your side show them why they should care that you've done your job and that you shouldn't be fired because HR if you don't do anything at the end of this HR will side with management and will say this employee should be fired if that's what the result of the PIP is showing you if you've done everything that you should have done once you get your pip you need to ask questions you need to go to the person who is giving you the PIP whether that's your supervisor or a manager above him and get clarification about the details not getting clarification exposes you later to all sorts of shenanigans for lack of a better term that's where employers can say well I asked you to complete this project but then you didn't do X Y or Z well they didn't tell you to do X Y or Z at the beginning if you would clarify that at the beginning you could have done X Y or Z and then you could have met their expectations and you can prove that getting clarifications is critical as to what the expectations are if you can't get those clarifications you need to ask somebody either an HR or elsewhere what is it that you should be doing because otherwise the employer is having or has the ability to simply allow you to fail the PIP based on nothing more than that person say so so the hidden secret is to discuss and confirm any clarifications about what you were expected to do in email with the supervisor don't just do it in person do it via email so that at the end of it you have documented exactly what you were supposed to do when you get your PIP if there is a reason why you should never have gotten the PIP then you need to ask for it to be withdrawn many employees make the mistake of allowing the employer to go forward with a pip that is based on some kind of unfairness for example if an employee gets a pip because he has missed time but that time was missed because of federally protected FMLA leave he should never have gotten that PIP in the first place that's not unsatisfactory performance they can't use that against you but if you don't if you don't stop them then by the end of the PIP now they've got new reasons to try to fire you now it's a performance issue right now you have failed to defend yourself at a point where you're no longer you at a point where you can stop the employer right if you go to HR and you say hey this guy's gonna try to fire me for using my FMLA leave HR is gonna listen to you because they know that there's legal liability out there that could put them in jeopardy and if somebody says you know six months a year down the line hey HR person why didn't you stop this when you knew there was FMLA leave at issue that person's going to be in real trouble and that person now knows now that they need to avoid that so the hidden secret is to identify any unfair reasons why the PIP was given in the first place and if necessary ask for it to be withdrawn if there is a problem with why it's being given ask for it to be withdrawn if you were if there's some legal basis or even if you were performing at a satisfactory level and that just has not been taken account in your performance evaluation do it sooner rather than later mmm if you go through the PIP process and get to the end many people get fired even though they could have challenged it at the beginning you need to make sure that you get objective goals the mistake is not having expected results that are clearly and provably achievable if you need to sell 10,000 widgets make sure that's in there don't let somebody tell you it's 10,000 widgets get it in writing make sure that and if it's not 10,000 widgets to say mmm I want you to sell sufficient widgets talk to the supervisor and say what is sufficient in your mind I need to know this if they won't put it in the pip put whatever the result of the discussion is into an email and send it to the employer send it to your supervisor say hey during our discussion last week you told me that by the end of this PIP I need to have sold 10,000 widgets and that is sufficient for you that gives the opportunity then to the supervisor to disagree with it which most likely he won't do because you're reflecting accurate what he said and it means that he can't later deny it once he's accepted that once the supervisor has accepted that he can't later deny that that is what the requirement is so this hidden secret that I have on this point is to clarify the expectations for every critical element okay every critical element if you're a federal employee that is a familiar term critical element meaning if you are failing at two out of the four critical elements you know the ten thousand widgets and the you're supposed to be selling twenty thousand of some box of something else then those are two separate critical elements that you're supposed to meet and you need to have each one of those clarified if you can't get this clarified if the supervisor will not clarify for you beyond beyond that it is you know up to his satisfaction whatever you're doing is up to his or her satisfaction you need to ask for an independent evaluator get somebody who works for the company or whatever the employer is to independently evaluate your work so that you're not relying solely on your supervisor for your rating because if your supervisors biased against you he's going to use that unclear expectation that vague expectation to against you to to fire you and in all of these cases where somebody is undergoing a pip vagueness is the enemy for the employee once you've or once you've gotten your pip you need to look out for unachievable new or unexpected goals if you assume that the pips expectations are reasonable and achievable without taking a hard look and saying is this really a requirement that should be there you're going to you may run into problems later for example if somebody using the example before somebody says you need to sell 10,000 widgets but you've never been able to sell 10,000 widgets before nobody's been able to sell 10,000 widgets before then that you need to bring that to the employers attention you need to bring that to the supervisors attention again preferably documented in an email in writing so that they can't deny it later tell them I can't sell 10,000 widgets nobody's ever sold above 1,000 if they are new or unexpected goals this is a slightly different problem when you have a pip they can't just give you a pip with totally new goals in it at least in the federal sector you're required to have to meet the goals that are set forth in your performance plan they can't change the performance plan and then say you need to meet these goals if there are new or unexpected goals that are in your pip you need to tell the supervisor that and if the supervisor doesn't listen go into HR so the hidden secret is to get clarification before you are being asked to take on unachievable new or unexpected goals and if you can't achieve these goals or if they are new or unexpected get rid of them go to HR get rid of them once you have your pip you're gonna go through a process where you are expected to meet if not weekly then bi-weekly maybe even more often than weekly with your supervisor so that you can talk about your performance typically in federal federal employment which is where I practice the most supervisors are required to meet with their employees and give feedback it's it's a common practice that they will sit down every week and say this is what you did give me a list of what you did here's my feedback on that and what you need to do in those meetings is if the person says if your supervisor says you didn't meet this critical element or you didn't meet this action that I wanted you to take but that's not true you need to say that moreover you then need to document it in an email say you know if is miss mr. supervisor for example says you you were supposed to sell a thousand widgets this week I don't see any of it that you did that you need to say well mister supervisor I did sell a thousand widgets here is the documentation from that here's you know here are my sales figures oh and by the way this is I'm gonna put this in an email later put it in the email send it to him say you know we talked about this during our meeting you said that I hadn't I hadn't sold my thousand widgets here's documentation showing that I did meet that sales goal and by the way you need to check this documentation every week before we have our meeting because you seem not to be understanding where to get that information means to disagree but doing it nicely and do it in writing why do you do it nicely because if you're going to antagonize your employer that can be itself a basis for more negative treatment you don't want to have you don't want to have a record that shows you and your your supervisor getting more and more antagonistic over time but you need to disagree being disagreeable isn't some it isn't necessarily not being nice be nice don't curse your supervisor but disagree when you need to disagree and make sure as always keep it in writing if you say it put it in writing later don't let them have the upper hand by saying I don't remember us discussing that or I don't think we ever did discuss that I would remember something like that that is a very easy way of getting out of a problem for a supervisor if you go to meetings with your supervisor where they are supposed to provide feedback and they stop doing that for example document that you may feel a sense of relief when your supervisor says the meeting for this week has been cancelled we'll just meet next week and we'll discuss two weeks worth of time email back and say I can't I can't accept that you said you were gonna meet with me every week to give me feedback I want you to meet with me every week and give me feedback because what happens is the supervisor says okay well you know last week we skipped this week we'll skip again three four five weeks and we skipped and at the end of it you know you're five you've lost five weeks of feedback where you get the opportunity to document what you've done and document that you have met the expectations of the supervisor don't lose those opportunities to document that you have been doing what is required the hidden secret is to document every request that you have for assistance and feedback and preferably do it in email make sure that the supervisor is not going to get away with having no feedback sessions at all furthermore what can happen is if you do document that the supervisor continues to miss meetings with you continues to not provide feedback at the end of the PIP process you can turn to HR you can turn to labor-management relations and say they were supposed to meet with me every week to do this he did not do that and I know the reason why he's trying to make this an unfair process where he doesn't give feedback he doesn't give support and now I'm being pushed out because of his unfairness there's something else going on here and this needs to stop when you have documentation like that hrs ears are gonna prick up and say wait a minute what's really going on here is there really a good faith effort to terminate somebody who's on a pip or is this really a situation where something else is going on such as discrimination or retaliation those are often the PIP process is very frequently used to get rid of people who have made claims of discrimination in the past because it's easy to fudge it's easy to show that somebody isn't performing up to standards when you can just make up whatever you want with vague terms so documenting the lack of feedback and support shows that there is not a there's no good faith in this process and leads one to conclude that there's something else going on another mistake that employees miss in the process is what happens when supervisors start moving the goal posts or imposing new requirements so moving the goal posts is where a supervisor says at the beginning of the process I want you to sell 10,000 widgets and by the end of the process he's saying well really I expected you sell 12,000 widgets that would have been acceptable that problem can be avoided at the beginning of this process by saying what are your expectations and then documenting them at the end of the process if you haven't done that you can still go back to the supervisor and say now you're saying 12,000 before you were saying 10,000 what has changed why are you why are you moving the goalposts because moving the goalposts is a way for a supervisor to keep the employee from being able to you know meet the expectations that he has as the goal post moves back the employee is less and less able to meet it employers will do this if they want to fire somebody for an unlawful or some other kind of reason and so it's important to recognize when those goal posts are being moved and then to document them new requirements same thing for new requirements if the supervisor says you have to sell 10,000 X widgets and you have to sell 10,000 Y widgets but that wasn't what was said at the beginning of the PIP process you need to come out and say no you told me that I needed to sell 10,000 in order to meet your expectations why are you giving me these new requirements well it's the same thing with moving the goalposts they're just trying to add something on so that you do fail and if you do fail then they have an excuse for firing you so my hidden secret is to document any changes in the expectations and any new requirements that are given to you and a reason for those changes so if if you do get a new a new requirement or the requirement gets expanded ask why and document that reason why if the supervisor doesn't have a good reason or it doesn't give you a reason put that in there say you didn't give me a reason why I should do this documenting that will make sure that at the end of the process any of these changes you could you can track these changes day one you said this day 39 you said this day 64 you said this by the end of the process you would just started making stuff up that's very strong evidence that the pit' process is being used for reasons other than what are what it's supposed to be used for at the end of the PIP process you want to be sure that you are ready to present your side of the story you want to be ready so that when you sit down with your supervisor you can say to your supervisor I did everything that you expected of me and when you change those expectations I did my best to try to meet those as well you didn't have any good reason for those expectations to be changed the point of this is really to focus on not just the not just the supervisor but also HR or labor-management relations having documentation at the end of this process is critical to being able to save your job if you're a federal employee that means you get to take this over to the Merit Systems Protection Board if you're not a federal employee but you're a member of a union then you can use a union grievance process or a similar process to protect your job but if you don't have that documentation you aren't going to be able to protect your job even if you don't have either the MSPB or or or a grievance process available to you HR is going to be there HR is going to be looking at looking for discrepancies between what the supervisor is saying and the documentation that is there if you can show that the supervisor has been changing his expectations the supervisor has been disagreeing with you about very easy to show accomplishments that you have made during this process they're going to wonder why is this supervisor doing it and they're not going to wait to find out that the reason is illegal they're going to want to stop it they're going to want to take the supervisor side say you can't do this if you want to fire this person you need to give us a good reason and because it doesn't seem to be performance they're trained to look out for that stuff because it's a way of protecting the company they don't want to have a lawsuit later and they are going to know what the basis of the lawsuit necessarily is but they know when stuff doesn't add up and when stuff doesn't add up it gives a reasonable inference that there's something else going on and if there is something else going on why isn't that the reason if it's not illegal right that's that's essentially the question that a lot of HR people will ask themselves and they won't know the answer to that they won't know the answer and they'll get scared that if there is an answer that could be illegal they want to avoid that so again the hidden secret is just to be ready to show with documentation that you met the expectations and that your supervisor is aware of this fact don't let that the end meeting be the first time that you were telling your supervisor I did meet your expectations because anybody who is there anybody who is reviewing this later will say you know you had you know between one and three months to be able to show this and this is the first time you bring this up I don't believe you that's a bad situation to find yourself in have a plan B many of the clients that I've had who have gone through difficulties with their employer have found that when they switch jobs for whatever reason either because they got fired or because they quit or because they they settled their case and part of that was that they were going to leave employment those people ended up being a lot happier in most cases I think that for clients you need to have a practical approach to this it can't just be the legal you need to have a plan B and believe me it is a lot easier to find a new job when you a current job you have a lot of credibility your there's nothing negative you don't have to tell some new employer yeah I'm currently on a pit you don't have to tell the new employee I mean what's the employer ask you can't lie to them obviously but you should be looking for a new job you should be not staying in a job that you don't like doing unless you absolutely have to meaning if you're very unhappy at this job and you have a bad relationship with your supervisor and if you've got a pip chances are pretty high that you've got a terrible relationship with your supervisor for one reason or another don't stay in that job and make yourself unhappy because you haven't looked for something else so this is where I talked about a quick action plan for employees so when you get your PIP get clear goals if you if they won't give you clear goals if their subjective goals get a new Raider somebody who's going to review your work that should be your number one thing when you get your pip look out for those subjective goals because vagueness is the enemy of the employee talk to somebody who is independent I can't stress enough that people who go into the PIP process look around at everybody else and blame others and that may not be inaccurate but you want to know you want to find a trusted voice who can tell you that you may want to talk to an attorney at that point because that person is going to help you sort through that person is going to be a trusted adviser he's going to rely on what you say to him but he's going to be a trusted adviser in that he can tell you you need to accomplish this I've seen this before I've been through this pip process I know how these things go this is what you can expect get an independent voice who can give you some real feedback challenge the PIP if it's being given to you for the wrong reasons say that now ask for it to be withdrawn ask for it to be modified ask for a new pip on a different basis if you were to sell 10,000 widgets and you sold 9900 widgets asked for that pip to be withdrawn and say I was so close to meeting your expectations why are you giving me a performance improvement plan when I got 99 percent of what you wanted document your progress throughout the PIP okay document the or you you are utilizing the resources that they give you if they tell you to talk to this person to be able to get more information document that you did it document that until you get to the point where you don't need it anymore and then you say I have done enough what more do I need to do and your supervisor will most likely not respond they'll say great thanks for using the resource I'm glad you used it and if you can get the resource if that's a person to say I've talked to this person and this person fully comprehends what he's supposed to do employers may you to make me show that not utilizing resources was why you didn't meet their expectations don't let that happen to you document feedback and update meetings if you go to feedback and update meetings and most people who have pips do document what happened document disagreements be nice but disagree if that's what the facts say use facts to your advantage don't make this about recriminations don't make this about your supervisor not doing his or her job document what the feedback was why that feedback was either right or wrong and what you are doing to meet the expectations because you don't want this in the end to look like look like you have not not been meeting their expectations and knowingly not doing so similarly document any factual misstatements if somebody says you were supposed to sell a thousand widgets last month and you did show them that you did if they say you didn't show them that you did and say you misstated during our meeting that I didn't meet this expectation document any new or increased requirements if you have a a if you have a requirement that is coming from the supervisor that is new or his increase like they're moving the goalposts don't allow him to do that without documenting it finally prepare for the fight prepare documentation that you met the goals okay meaning that at by the end of this you want to have emails over the course of weeks and months showing that you've been meeting every expectation that they've laid down you want also to have a plan B READY it's easier to go through this process if you have another job in your hand at that point you know if the supervisor is being truly unfair you can say thanks I don't need this job anymore and you don't wait until you've been fired to get that new job nothing that I've said in this video has been legal advice specifically for you but if you do think that you've been the victim of discrimination or retaliation particularly if you've received a pip you should contact an attorney as soon as possible even if you're still in the process having an attorney who is experienced in fighting pips can be the difference between winning and losing at the end my name is Kyle Ingram I'm an attorney in Washington DC and I represent employees who have been the victims of discrimination and retaliation thank you for taking the time to watch this video and I wish you the best of luck in fighting your PIP [Music] [Music]