Part 3: PIP-Proof

How to beat the PIP system, or at least rig it in your favor

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

In the prior article about Performance Improvement Plans, or PIPs, I talked about them from the manager’s perspective. Part One talked about how managers can handle firings with poise and compassion. Today I’ll talk about how employees can avoid PIPs and firings altogether.

Workers can take some steps to make themselves a little bit safer from being chosen for a PIP. Even if you’re not feeling especially vulnerable, by taking some steps like these you’ll be showing the value you’re creating at work. 

If you are working for a manager who has an attrition target to worry about, then a process like this may be essential. If you are working in a more humane environment, and have a great relationship with your manager, that’s great.

In a poor macroeconomic environment, you might find yourself thinking a bit more defensively about how you communicate your value.  The steps that follow are healthy career habits for anyone at any time. 

Take a look, then let’s discuss how they work in the context of PIPs:

1. Screenshot positive feedback you get from your manager

2. Ask for positive feedback from your manager in every 1:1 meeting 

3. Make a paper trail of your own successes 

Screenshotting Feedback

Take screenshots of positive feedback that you get from your manager in Slack or Teams or DM or whatever. Here’s why. 

Imagine a scenario involving Manager A. They’re preparing to PIP an employee. Manager B says something encouraging in Slack to the employee that acknowledged the positive contribution of that employee’s work. Manager A grows concerned that these comments could undermine their ability to fire the employee at the end of the PIP. Manager A asks Manager B to log into Slack in the middle of the night and delete the encouraging messages from Slack. This way there would be no evidence to undermine the outcome of the PIP.

This is a nasty scenario. Don’t even get me started. I hope you never work in a place where something like this happens. But depending on your employer, you might want to keep this idea in the back of your head. At some companies, a PIP can proceed to a situation where you need to argue your case to a panel of peers in order to keep your job. I have heard of more than one scenario where a manager has deleted Slack messages in order to support their need to meet their firing-via-PIP quota for the quarter. It does happen. It could happen to you.

Even if you don’t think it will happen to you, it’s wise to keep a folder full of positive feedback. Have a reminder of your own accomplishments! You can draw on them when you’re updating your resume. Have a self-esteem boost close at hand when you might need it. Who knows, maybe you will never face evil-doers sneaking into Slack under cover of darkness to literally erase your accomplishments from the scrollback. That person probably did not see that one coming. But it’s nice to have the screenshots… just in case. 

Get Positive Feedback

I hope your managers provide you with positive feedback on the regular. Some managers are great at this. Others are not. The type of manager you have is very important when it comes to anticipating how vulnerable you are. 

Having a folder full of positive feedback can help you avoid getting a PIP. Getting that feedback from your manager is really quite important. If your manager is not providing it voluntarily, you can go ahead and supply it for them. 

You can say something like this:

Hey, manager! In our weekly 1:1’s, I’d like to start sharing with you what I feel are examples of my most meaningful positive contributions. I’d like to hear from you whether you agree with my own assessment, and learn if you think I’m on the right track. Does that sound ok?

Success Paper Trail

And then, after each meeting you can send an email that says:

Hi there dear Manager! I just wanted to recap our meeting. We talked about the new monitoring system that I shipped last week. As we discussed, it has improved uptime by nearly 4% over the old system, and over time should yield a cost savings of around $150k per year. I'm proud of this and I appreciate you saying that you also think it's a valuable contribution to the team.

There’s your paper trail! You’re going to be in the habit of showing up prepared for each weekly meeting with some notes about your the contribution that you made that week. It’s wise to be able to quantify the impact that you had, rather than merely say that you did a bunch of stuff. And you want to be unerringly consistent in doing this each and every week.

Why? Because this is going to establish a track record of performance that establishes your impact in a meaningful and objective way. You might think that it will be difficult come up with impressive statistics every week. Don’t worry about that.

The Bear

If it’s hard for you to envision your paper trail, try envisioning a little less. It doesn’t need to show you curing COVID. Just show a steady drumbeat of your contributions. It matters less what they are. It matters more that the documentation is consistent. 

Look around you. I’ll bet the vast majority of the individual contributors nearby do not consistently produce a record that reflects the value they contribute. As the saying goes, if you and your friend are trying to outrun a bear, you do not have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun your friend.

This is not going to save you from a mass layoff. And it’s not going to save you if you:

• Are under-performing according to any objective criteria

• Have a problematic relationship with your manager

• Are the source of complaints from your peers

In these cases, the paper trail I have described will not save your ass. Your manager will PIP you. You need help from a coach, or a mentor, an interdepartmental transfer, or an intergalactic abduction. 

My perspective on this is informed by my work as a manager and executive for the last thirty years. Here’s how I see it: Do you have nine or twelve months of receipts showing you delivering something of value? How many of the other 9 or 12 people on your team can show that? Managers who have to meet a quota for attrition might be thinking this way.

Here’s another thing they might be thinking: Who on my team is making my life harder this week? I’m very sorry if this sounds horrible. Perhaps they should not, but managers certainly do make decisions this way sometimes. 

If you have given your manager a reason to be angry, frustrated, disappointed, or aggravated, your performance paper trail might not make any difference at all. It’s wise for you also to keep that in mind. 

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