Often feared and only occasionally utilized, Performance Improvement Plans remain a critical workplace tool, employed to ensure that the workforce is fully capable of performing the roles they are assigned. Despite their essential role in the workplace, however, the mere mention of a PIP is enough to cause a sense of unease and distrust, and this looming cloud invades the employee-employer relationship, even if the employee ultimately stays on. If performance improvement plans are so vital to the smooth running of any organization, why aren’t they used with greater frequency? This might be because the deployment of a PIP is often seen by employees as the beginning of the end.
A Performance Improvement Plan should typically serve as a way to bring an underperforming employee back up to speed, but its use as an ultimatum has caused the very nature of the process to take on a more twisted form in recent years. Should employers then abandon the PIP process, or is there a way to revive its reputation?
Performance Improvement Plans have a reputation for being the “beginning of the end” for an employee, but the process could fix a lot of the gaping holes in operations today. (Image: Freepik)
Starting from the Top: What are Performance Improvement Plans?
Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs), or Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), are a process that employers use when an employee is found to consistently perform below expectations. In an ideal scenario, they serve as a way for employers to set clear guidelines for performance improvements that are expected from a particular employee, and establish milestones that need to be achieved over the next few weeks to ensure that they remain on track to show that they are capable of growing and meeting organizational needs.
One might be quick to assume that this sounds like the natural progression of events after any performance review, but PIP processes are more detailed and structured, and failure to improve often leads to termination. This is where the dread and dismay over PIPs often make an appearance.
Why Is There a Negative Connotation to Using PIPs?
The smooth running of any organization hinges on the quality of its systems, operations, and individual performances, which means that PIPs shouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Despite this, they have frequently been suspected of being used as a way to fire workers the long way, ensuring there are no future legal repercussions of doing so. With “at will” employment standards in the U.S., employers don’t necessarily have to justify their decision to let go of an employee. But the fear of repercussion often keeps many from taking the straightforward approach of announcing a cut.
Layoffs can be expensive and come with the problem of having to offer severance benefits to employees. Abrupt firings can be doubly expensive if employees respond with a discrimination lawsuit or claims under the FLSA. This is why PIPs are seen as a tool that can be wielded with great proficiency to eliminate workers who are no longer seen as essential to operations.
Are PIPs Actually Bad for the Organization?
PIPs can be well-intentioned, as they give workers a chance to make adjustments to their performance under the close watch of mentors and supervisors who can assist by providing greater attention than employees might regularly receive. This allows employees to fix their mistakes or learn the right techniques and strategies needed for elevating their performance, resulting in greater confidence in their skills and abilities. At least that is the ideal way of the PIP.
Employees often accuse employers of setting unrealistic expectations with the onset of a PIP, establishing goals and deadlines that they know they will be unable to meet. Many employees also complain that, alongside these unrealistic goals, they are expected to improve in areas that have nothing to do with their roles, or showcase results in areas where widespread organizational change is needed to make a difference. As a result, when a performance improvement plan is brought up, employees automatically see it as the first sign that they are about to be let go.
Even if the PIP is used specifically for the purpose of improvement and not termination, this general sense of foreboding around the initiation of a PIP often causes permanent harm to the employee’s relationship with the organization. Being placed on a PIP is seen as embarrassing and cruel, and many employees automatically make up their minds to quit over the next few months. A bad reputation can be hard to brush off, and PIPs certainly have the reputation of being the worst kind of trouble at work.
Should Organizations Continue to Use Performance Improvement Plans?
After all that has been said about PIPs and their tragic outcomes, some might find themselves drawing just one conclusion: leave PIPs in the past and just fire employees with empathy when one has outgrown the other. In reality, this isn’t the ideal way to approach growth. Performance Improvement Plans, can in fact, you guessed it, improve performance when applied correctly.
Employees learn to fear outcomes they’ve experienced and observed, and this negative association with PIPs is a prime example of that. When employees observe colleagues put on rational and well-intentioned PIPs and then see them return to their desks with an actionable plan in hand, they learn to trust that their organization still trusts them to grow. PIPs also offer employers and employees an opportunity to get on the same page about what is expected, rather than floundering around with inefficient communication as the only mooring point.
Kim Scott, renowned author of Radical Candor, puts it best, “If you’ve had a series of radically candid conversations with an employee and things are not improving, you are going to have to fire them. But to be fair to the person and to comply with the law, you want to be sure that communication was really clear,” she says.
“Sometimes you think you’ve said the thing, but the person has not heard it. Other times, you were clear, but the person is brushing you off because they don’t understand that there are consequences. That is why you need a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).”
Do PIPs Deserve a Rebrand?
Don’t we all, in 2026? PIPs may have a sordid past, but organizations have grown too comfortable with the fire-and-rehire strategy. Employees are eager to grow, and their rising trend of layoffs has many of them vowing to hold on to their jobs with greater gusto than ever before.
There is also an apparent shortage of talent on the market, despite the growing number of job seekers seeking stability. During times like this, it is often best to retain your talent and grow with them rather than without. Employers who actually intend to see their talent live up to their full potential can employ PIPs to genuinely ascertain the nature of the relationship and determine whether it’s one worth preserving.
For this to happen, however, employers also need to be honest about their intention behind using a PIP and setting a realistic path for the employee to tread. Performance Improvement Plans that ask the moon of an employee who has only ever been granted permission to look at the launch site are highly unrealistic.
How Do You Conduct a PIP?
When it comes to seeking proof of improvement in an employee’s performance, it’s best to first understand the shortcomings and the reasons behind them. A lazy middle-manager or a toxic work environment is enough to dim anyone’s light, and if these issues lie at the heart of the inefficiencies at your organization, there are bigger concerns at hand.
However, if you do determine that the employee isn’t working up to expectations, it’s essential that you stop to consider why that is and what improvements would look like for you. Following that, it’s all about creating a plan that quantifies the improvements and then sets a realistic course for fixing them.
In true radical fashion, Kim Scott writes, “A good PIP really gives the person the chance to improve, and it is radically candid about the needed improvements. If your company does not have somebody in HR whose job it is to help you document properly, find an employment lawyer, a seasoned HR person, or an experienced manager and ask them for help.”
Why, you may ask? For guidance, of course. “Don’t just ask for advice; get them to edit what you write. Advice is far too abstract,” Scott adds. “I’ve seen dozens of cases where a manager has been advised how to write a PIP. They are told to make it fair but not too easy, to make sure that it really addresses the performance issue. The managers hear the ‘fair’ part but ignore the ‘not too easy’ part. The person passes the PIP without addressing the core issue, and the performance problem drags on for another three or six months.”
“Writing a good PIP takes time— a lot more time than you want to spend on it. But it’s worth taking the time because you want to be fair to people and because being sued is far worse! If the person does not pass the PIP, remember: the reason you have to fire them is not that they suck. It’s not even that they suck at this job. It’s that this job— the job you gave them— sucks for them. Don’t be an a**hole about it!” Scott says, and we couldn’t agree more.
Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and if you do go down the treacherous path of the PIP, doing it correctly is entirely beneficial for everyone involved in the process.
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