Are you using the best method to improve the performance of an underperforming employee? Is your framework helping them and your organization stay compliant with current labor laws?
It’s a question every employer asks. What’s the best action to take? How can I help my employees improve? How can we make our team and company work better–and not get sued in the process?
Unfortunately, improvement is not just a matter of best practices. It’s also a matter of law.
As a media and labor attorney, and former business consultant, I’ve worked with many clients involved in labor disputes, either on the employer’s or employee’s side. Many times, these disputes focused on employee performance and how it was evaluated. Employee performance metrics were often used as a tool for the employee’s separation.
As we all know, especially in litigious states such as California, you need to ensure everything is documented correctly and compliant with employment statutes. And that influences so much of what organizations do for employee performance management.
Here is what I’ve learned over the years, and what I am sharing with my clients:
Reframe the Improvement Process
Instead of using Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) to justify firing underperforming employees, maybe we should be writing Success Improvement Plans (SIPs) to help employees succeed.
SIPs are not just a new title. SIPs are a different way of thinking.
As research has shown, the words you use can change the way you think–and your outcomes. Take the phrases “have to do” and “get to do.” Saying you “get to do” something instead of “having to do” it reframes your mindset to a positive outcome. For example, instead of thinking you have all this work to do–that stops you from having fun. Think, you get to do all this work–which allows you to pay your bills and take vacations. Now, how do you feel about work?
The Difference Between PIPs and SIPs
The main difference between PIPs and SIPs is employee involvement and the intended outcome.
PIPs have typically been about building a paper trail to justify terminating an underperforming employee. On the other hand, SIPs involve the employees in the process to help them succeed.
This system is based on my own research findings and scaffolded by the incredible work of Dr. JP Pawliw Fry and Bill Benjamin from the Institute for Health and Human Potential (IHHP), with their high-performing teams framework.
The IHHP premise is that high-performing teams require two things–accountability and care. When leadership exemplifies high care and high accountability, teams can be high-performing. On the other hand, when companies exhibit high avoidance and low accountability, employees tend to leave or be let go.
How Do Success Improvement Plans Work?
SIPs work like this.
The employee is first assured they are a valuable team member and that leadership wants the employee to succeed. The employer then gives the employee feedback on how they are underperforming and how they were measured. Afterward, the employee uses that feedback to write their own SIP.
Once the employee completes their SIP, the employer takes the draft and supplements the SIP with additional milestones, metrics, and how the new success will be measured.
This process is framed around success, not performance. It’s about improvement, not justification for termination.
As a media and labor attorney who “sees it all,” and earlier in my career as an organizational consultant, I’ve found that companies that involve employees in creating plans for their success do better and have less turnover.
Meanwhile, those companies that focus on creating paper trails and justifications end up in the same position at a later date. Even worse, these companies have a higher percentage of labor disputes and lawsuits for employment practices.
Which type of company do you want to be?
This article was originally published by Inc. Apr 1, 2024.