GovernmentExecutive.com

The performance improvement plan, long a staple of federal management, might be on its way out. Used primarily to give an employee a last-ditch chance to improve before being fired, the PIP has become a thorn in many managers' sides. Numerous bureaucratic requirements complicate how the plan should be structured. Backers say the PIP is one of few protections employees have against arbitrary firings or bad managers.

Opponents say it is a time-wasting step that delays the inevitable firing of a poor performer. The PIP lists performance goals for the worker and deadlines for meeting them. An employee who fails to achieve any of the goals - known in HR jargon as a "critical element" - can be fired. A manager usually writes and presents a PIP after numerous informal efforts fail to yield improvement. The supervisor identifies one or more critical elements at which the employee is failing.

Many managers don't realize that federal law does not require a performance plan before firing an employee. If the problem is unacceptable conduct (such as tardiness or abusive behavior), then a last chance to improve isn't required. If the problem is performance, then managers must give employees "an opportunity to demonstrate acceptable performance" before canning them.

To comply with that requirement, many agencies have developed the performance improvement plan. Some, through regulation or collective bargaining agreements, have strict rules for structuring PIPs. Some require managers to give employees as long as 90 days to improve. But such a lengthy requirement frustrates managers who feel they have worked with employees as much as they can by the time they reach the PIP stage.

In the private sector, a performance improvement plan essentially is the kiss of death. Smart employees start packing up their desks and launch résumé blitzes. But in the federal government, the PIP has a relatively surprising success rate. According to a 1996 Merit Systems Protection Board survey, 32 percent of federal managers said they had placed employees on performance plans. Managers said things got better for 45 percent of the workers placed on the plans. For the most recent employees placed on PIPs, the managers reported that 35 percent improved performance.

For most of those placed on PIPs, it was time to move on. But for some, the plan might have been just the wake-up call they needed to focus on performance. For others, it might have been the first time their bosses were clear about what was expected of them.

Some managers say employees improve just enough to keep their jobs but soon revert to poor performance, forcing another PIP cycle. In fact, the Defense and Homeland Security departments proposed getting rid of the PIP, or making it optional, in their planned personnel reforms.

Through years of regulation and case law, the performance improvement plan has become an unwieldy beast for managers. But for employees, it is a last shot at redemption. Cutting away the regulatory ornamentation that has come to make the PIP more of a burden than a tool would be one way to preserve that last hope. It also would give managers a less cumbersome method of telling employees to shape up or ship out.

COMMENTS

• PIP is a basic necessity for any pay for performance plan! The PIP outlines the things an employee has to do to achieve the performance that will generate the pay! for managers to say that the PIP is a bad time wasting step is to say they do not know how to manage! Just because the PIP is in connection with the final step in termination does not make it wasteful. This is just another example of why pay for performance will never work in DoD and should be stopped now! Managers cannot and do not want to manage! Pay for performance requires decent managers. Also in DoD most of the managers are military. The military move at least every two years so they do not want to spend their time developing PIPs and measuring performance of civilians! how would their OPR look if they said they managed - they have top save millions of dollars or reduce employument significantly to get ahead in their stupid up or out system! They do not know the job, they do not work with civilians well, they do not know the civil service rules concerning civilian employees, they think that their rank in the military makes them experts in everything, and they focus on form rather than substance! These are not good managers and never should be given the power of pay for performance because they do not know or care what the work is or should be. They do not write the job descriptions, they do not ask employees if they want to change jobs it just happens. To take the PIP out of this situation is wrong and will lead to worse management practices in DoD. taxpayer Posted July 14, 2005 7:03 AM
• I deal with managers on a regular basis concerning performance management and I don't see PIPs as a negative. Instead, it forces managers, some for the first time, to actually talk to their employees and let them know what they need to improve. We struggle in order just to get management to perform the evaluations in a timely fashion. This is why I am personally concerned about new DHS and DoD rules regarding performance and being paid for it. I managers struggle with a pass/fail system, how can they possibly use it properly to evaluate an employee for the purpose of pay banding? GovExec.com reader Posted July 13, 2005 11:27 AM
• I have worked in performance management for over ten years both as an employee representative and as an employee relations specialist for multiple agencies. I recently wrote an article for FPMI's newsletter about why managers and ER Specialists are afraid of Part 432 Actions. Honestly, there should be thousands of Part 432 PIPs and Performance-based Actions. When I hear managers say they don't want to take the time-even 90 days- to implement a PIP I can just laugh. Ninety days of testing an employee with work assignments, completely spelled out expectations, and a few meetings to help the employee perform is too much effort!!!! When the removal proposal and final decision occurs it is a slam dunk for the agency. There is practically no way for an employee to successfully overturn such an action under the substantive evidence standard at MSPB. I know first hand the impossibility of this task. In less than 4 months you can get rid of non-performers with little chance of losing at MSPB except for a defective PIP-- to me this is absolutely the best technique for achieving this goal-- we just finished drafting our latest PIP yesterday. It's nonsense to think that Part 752 Misconduct Actions are the way to go for straight shot performance based issues with the risk of mitigation at MSPB. In fact, the way the system is set up you can remove the most outstanding employee for poor performance if you have four years of patience as a manager with little recourse by this employee. Performance Management under Part 432 is an incredible tool-- and why be upset with a 40-50% success rate-- this is good percentage because the whole purpose of Part 432 is to jump start performance. And my success rate in helping managers keep their employees utilizing a PIP and improving performance is much higher than 50%. I will very mourn the loss of the PIP as a reclamation tool in employee relations. The alternative for poor performance as misconduct is just too harsh! Mike Stein Acting Chief, ELR ITA/DOC mike stein Posted July 13, 2005 8:25 AM