performance_improvement_plan v1.0.0

name: performance_improvement_plan description: Write, run, or audit a performance improvement plan (PIP) that is fair and usable: specific gaps with dated evidence, measurable goals in the employee's control, named support, a check-in structure, a clear timeline, and documentation that makes any outcome defensible. Use when drafting a PIP, preparing a manager to deliver one, reviewing a PIP draft for vagueness or bias, running PIP check-ins, or deciding a PIP outcome.

Performance Improvement Plan

Purpose

Produce a plan that gives an employee a real chance to meet a stated standard, and a record that shows exactly what was asked, what support was given, what happened, and why the final decision followed.

A good PIP does three things at once. It tells the employee, in plain language, what is not meeting the standard and what meeting it looks like. It commits the manager to specific support and regular check-ins, not just to judging at the end. And it creates a contemporaneous record, so a close-out decision rests on evidence collected during the plan, not on memory or mood at the end.

This skill covers performance gaps: quality, quantity, timeliness, accuracy, and observable work behaviors tied to the job. It does not cover misconduct investigations, medical decisions, or legal advice. Route those to HR.

Workflow

1. Pass the gate before drafting

Do not draft until each item is true, or flag the gap to HR first:

• Prior feedback exists. The employee has heard the core concern before, in coaching, a one-on-one, or a review, with at least one dated note. A PIP that is the first mention of a problem is a surprise, and a surprise plan is hard to defend and hard to succeed on.
• The standard was set in advance. You can point to a job description, goal, policy, or prior agreement that defines the expected level. If no standard was ever communicated, set it now in writing and coach against it before a formal plan.
• Past ratings do not contradict the plan. If the last review said satisfactory while the problem was already present, name that inconsistency in the file note and explain what changed or what the review missed. Do not pretend the contradiction is not there.
• The issue is performance, not a protected or medical matter handled elsewhere. If a disability, medical condition, leave, or accommodation request may be part of the picture, pause and involve HR. Under EEOC guidance, employers may hold employees to the same essential-function standards, but a reasonable accommodation that would help performance must be considered through the interactive process, even when the request arrives during a plan. Accommodation does not require excusing past poor performance or raising a rating.
• The outcome is not already decided. If the decision to exit has in fact been made, say so to HR and use the process HR directs. A plan written as cover for a settled decision fails the employee and weakens the record.

2. Name the cause before naming the fix

For each gap, test four causes and record which ones the evidence supports:

• Clarity: the employee did not know the standard, the priority, or the deadline rule.
• Skill: the employee knows the standard and cannot yet do the work to it.
• Capacity or resources: workload, tools, access, dependencies, or staffing block the result.
• Will or habit: the employee can do it, knows it, has the resources, and the pattern persists.

The plan must fix the causes it names. A skill cause needs training, worked examples, or review of early drafts. A clarity cause needs written standards and priority rules. A capacity cause needs a workload or dependency change owned by the manager. A plan that names a resource cause and then offers no resource change is not a support plan, it is a warning letter with extra pages.

3. Build the evidence table first

Write this before any prose. One row per gap:

• Area: the duty or critical element, in the words of the role.
• Standard: the expected level, with the source (goal, policy, job description).
• Observed: what happened, with dates, counts, and work products. Example form: reports due Fridays at 17:00, late in 6 of the last 8 weeks, missing entirely in 2.
• Impact: the concrete effect on customers, the team, a deadline, cost, or risk. No impact, no gap row. If you cannot state the impact, the item is a preference, not a standard.
• Prior feedback: date and form of the earlier conversation about this same gap.

Apply the camera test to every observed entry: could a camera or a system log have recorded it? Keep actions, outputs, and timestamps. Cut trait words (attitude, commitment, professionalism, ownership) unless they are immediately followed by the recorded behavior that led to them.

4. Turn each gap into a measurable goal

Each goal needs six fields. If a field cannot be filled, the goal is not ready:

• Action: the concrete behavior or output, in the employee's control.
• Measure: how it will be counted, and the source of truth (system log, submission timestamp, reviewed sample, error count).
• Target: the number, rate, or quality bar that counts as meeting the standard. Use the normal standard for the role, not a higher bar invented for the plan.
• Sample or scope: all work, or a defined sample, for example the first 10 tickets each week reviewed against the quality checklist.
• Deadline or cadence: a date, or a repeating rule such as every Friday at 17:00 for the plan period.
• Sustained requirement: how long the level must hold, for example met in each of the final 3 weeks, not met once.

Rewrite rule: replace a trait goal with the smallest observable that proves it. "Improve communication" becomes "Reply to customer emails within one business day, or send a holding reply that names the date of the full answer, for every email in the plan period." Worked rewrites for common cases are in references/worked-examples.md.

5. Write the support the employer owes

List support as commitments with an owner and a date, not as offers:

• Training or shadowing: what it is, who provides it, by when, and paid time to do it.
• Coaching: check-in cadence (see step 6), plus any extra review of early work, with the reviewer named.
• Resources: tools, access, templates, checklists, or workload changes, with the manager's delivery date.
• Accommodation steps, if any: record that HR is handling the interactive process. Keep medical detail out of the plan document.

If the manager misses a support commitment, log it and adjust the assessment of that goal. An employee cannot fairly fail a goal whose promised support never arrived.

6. Set the timeline and the check-in structure

• Duration: follow employer policy and HR guidance for your setting. Do not copy a number from another sector. For context only, recent US federal guidance limits federal PIPs to 30 calendar days, while many private employers use longer periods set by their own policy. The right duration is the shortest period in which the work naturally produces enough observations to judge: a daily output role may be judgeable in weeks, a monthly reporting role needs at least two or three full cycles.
• Start and end dates: calendar dates, not "30 days from now."
• Check-ins: weekly or biweekly, scheduled in advance, 20 to 30 minutes, same agenda each time: evidence since last check-in, goal by goal status, barriers, support delivered or missed, agreed next steps.
• Mid-point note: a short written summary halfway through stating on track, partly on track, or off track per goal, so the end is not a surprise.
• No moving targets: goals, targets, and the end date do not change mid-plan except by a written amendment that both sides see, with the reason recorded (for example leave, a system outage, or an accommodation starting).

7. State the consequences plainly, once

In one short section, state what happens at close-out for each outcome: goals met and sustained, goals partly met, goals not met. Name the real possibilities from policy, such as plan closed, plan extended for a defined period, role change, or employment ending, in the wording HR approves for your setting. Do not threaten outcomes that policy does not allow, and do not soften the section so far that the employee can reasonably say they did not know their job was at risk.

8. Deliver it in a meeting, not by email alone

• Private meeting, manager plus employee, with HR or a witness present when consequences attach, per your policy.
• Walk the evidence table first, then the goals, then the support, then the timeline and consequences. Invite the employee's account of barriers and record it in their words in the meeting note.
• Ask what support they think is missing. Add it, or record why not.
• Give the employee a copy. Ask for a signature that means acknowledgment of receipt and understanding, not agreement. If they decline to sign, note the date, who was present, and that a copy was provided.
• File the signed or noted copy, the evidence table, and the meeting note together.

9. Run the plan and log as you go

After every check-in, write a short note the same day: date, who attended, evidence reviewed, status per goal, support delivered, barriers raised, next steps. Share the note with the employee and keep corrections they offer.

Keep collecting the same measures named in the goals. Do not introduce new complaints mid-plan as plan failures; raise new issues separately, or amend the plan in writing if they are the same gap. Praise met targets in the log when they happen. A log that records only failures reads as a case being built, not a plan being run.

10. Close out on the pre-set criteria

At the end date, decide per goal first, then overall, using only the measures and period the plan defined:

• Met and sustained: close the plan in writing, name the evidence, state the standard that continues to apply as normal job expectation, and set a follow-up check 60 to 90 days later if policy uses one.
• Partly met: choose, with HR, between a single defined extension (new end date, which goals carry over, what changes) and the consequence stated in the plan. Record why. Do not extend repeatedly; a second extension usually means the original plan was mis-scoped.
• Not met: apply the stated consequence through HR, citing the goal-by-goal record. The close-out letter should surprise no one who read the mid-point note.

Whichever outcome, write it, give the employee a copy, and file it with the check-in log.

Output Contract

Deliver, in this order:

1. Gate note: 3 to 6 lines confirming prior feedback, the pre-set standard, rating consistency, HR involvement, and any accommodation flag. If a gate item failed, that item and what was done about it.
2. The plan document, following references/plan-template.md: header (role, manager, HR, start and end dates), evidence table, goals with all six fields, support commitments with owners and dates, check-in schedule, consequences, acknowledgment block.
3. Check-in log template: one entry stub per scheduled check-in, plus the mid-point summary stub.
4. Close-out stub: the three outcome paths with the evidence each one requires, left ready to complete at the end date.
5. A validation pass: run scripts/validate_pip.py on the plan draft when it is in a text or markdown file, fix every missing-section error, and read every vagueness warning aloud before deciding to keep the flagged wording.

Operating Rules

• Specific beats severe. A short plan with dated evidence and countable goals protects the employee and the employer better than a long plan full of strong adjectives.
• Same standard, same bar. Apply the role's normal standard, and check consistency: would this gap, at this level, start a plan for anyone in this role? If not, coach it instead.
• In the employee's control. Never set a goal that depends on another team's delivery, a customer's behavior, or a system the employee cannot affect, unless the goal is written around the part they control.
• No new bars mid-plan. Changing targets, measures, or the end date without a written, shared amendment voids the fairness of the close-out.
• Support is a debt. Promised support that was not delivered gets logged and weighed at close-out. Do not score a goal in isolation from the support record.
• Behavior language only. Dates, counts, outputs, and recorded words. No speculation about motives, health, family, or character, and no references to protected characteristics.
• Contemporaneous or it did not happen. Notes written at the end from memory are worth less and read worse. Log check-ins the same day.
• HR reviews before delivery. Employment rules vary by place and policy. This skill sets the structure and the evidence standard; HR and, where needed, legal review settle wording, duration, and consequences for the specific case.
• Privacy. Keep the plan, the log, and the outcome between the employee, the manager, HR, and decision makers who need them. Do not discuss a plan with the wider team.
• Templates and examples: references/plan-template.md holds the fill-in plan and log. references/worked-examples.md holds three full cases (reporting deadlines, ticket quality, meeting behavior) plus a rewrite table for vague goals.