What is a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)?

A performance improvement plan (PIP) is a formal, time-bound plan setting out specific performance objectives, the support the employer will provide, the review points, and the consequence stated in policy if the objectives are not met. It is also the point where a performance conversation stops being a conversation and becomes a process. That is not a technicality. Everything before it is yours to hold, adapt and get slightly wrong; a PIP sits inside your employer's policy, is examined afterward by people who were not in the room, and has a stated consequence attached to it. A frequent way one fails is that the manager treats the plan itself as the first time anybody said anything.

This page is general management guidance, not legal or HR advice. What a performance process must contain, what notice it requires, whether an employee may be accompanied, and what makes a subsequent dismissal lawful are set by law and by your own employer's policy, and they vary sharply between countries and between US states. Nothing here tells you what your obligations are. Talk to your HR team or an employment lawyer before you start one.

What a plan actually contains

  • The specific concern, in observable terms. Not "quality issues" — the instances, with dates, and what each one cost downstream.
  • Objectives that are specific and measurable. A useful test: could a good performer in the same role hit these in this period? If not, the plan is a countdown rather than a plan.
  • The support attached to each objective — with a name and a date against it. Support that names no one and no date has not been offered.
  • The period, and the review points inside it. Employers commonly use 30, 60 or 90 days — your own policy sets it — with scheduled reviews rather than one verdict at the end.
  • The consequence, in the policy's own words. Not a phrase the manager invented. A quoted consequence is one you can stand behind later; an invented one is a threat.
  • What the employee says. Their challenges recorded on the file alongside the employer's account, not instead of it.

What has to exist before a plan starts

A plan used as the first step, or as a way of building a file, is both unfair and usually visible as such. Before one is reasonable, three things should already be true and written down:

  1. The concern was raised informally, at least once, in terms the person could act on — and a short note of that conversation exists with a date on it.
  2. It was raised a second time, referring explicitly to the first, with support offered and either taken up or declined.
  3. A review date passed and the observable thing did not change.

The usual failure is not moving too fast through those rungs. It is standing on the first one for months and then jumping straight to a formal step the person genuinely did not see coming.

"Am I being managed out?"

This is the question a PIP meeting tends to turn on, and it usually comes early. It deserves a straight answer, which means the manager has to have decided the honest answer before walking in.

If the outcome has genuinely not been decided, say so plainly and point at the evidence — the weeks of support in the plan, the fact that you are willing to argue about whether objective three is achievable. If somebody senior has already decided the outcome, the answer "no, of course not" is the sentence that gets quoted back, accurately, in a claim. A plan whose result is predetermined is not a plan, and that is a matter to take to HR before the meeting rather than to paper over inside it.

Where plans go wrong

  • Starting the clock over disputed facts. If the employee says a figure is wrong, check it and move the start date. A plan built on numbers the person has told you are inaccurate is worthless, and the challenge is the easiest thing in the world to prove later.
  • Continuing after a disclosure. Once health, a disability, treatment, caring responsibilities or an accommodation request is on the table, treat it as a signal to stop and check with HR before you go on. Running the plan as drafted from that point is very hard to defend.
  • Support the employer chose alone. Ask the person what would actually help. The obstacle is often something structural — an access problem, a tooling problem, a workload nobody re-planned — and the plan is the right moment to find that out rather than a moment too late.
  • Finishing the meeting when somebody is distressed. An adjournment costs a day. A record made in distress will be challenged, and should be.
  • Timing that follows a complaint. If the employee has recently raised a complaint, made a protected disclosure or returned from leave, expect the timing to be scrutinized alongside the substance.

PIP, written warning, and progressive discipline

These are related but not interchangeable. A PIP is usually a capability route: the person is trying and the work is not landing. Progressive discipline is usually a conduct route: the person did something they should not have. Many employers run separate policies for the two, with different steps and different paperwork, and using the wrong one is a procedural problem in itself. Check which policy governs before you name the meeting.

What to do the hour after the meeting

Write the note while the wording is still exact, use the employee's own words for their account, record what you committed to as well as what they did, and send them a copy the same day with an explicit invitation to add their comments to the file. That single habit removes most later disputes about what was actually said.

Related templates and concepts

A plan is a document wrapped around a conversation. The Manager's Difficult-Conversations Script Bank scripts that conversation — the opener, the four replies you actually get, what to say to each, and the note to write afterward — including the two informal conversations that should come first, and a stop-check on each card naming when to bring HR in before you open. One whole script from it is the free first-performance-concern script (PDF, no signup). See also how to start a performance conversation, progressive discipline, the 9-box grid, and the templates for managers hub.

Templates that implement this

3 templates

A PIP meeting is a conversation before it is a document — and the two informal conversations that should have preceded it are conversations too.

Further reading

How the smaller versions of this conversation work, and what to do instead of an annual review cycle.