Put them on a PIP
This is a story about performance management and uncomfortable conversations and difficult decisions.
An Engineering Manager I know had a mid-level engineer transfer to their team through a restructure. They quickly discovered that this engineer’s quality of work and experience was junior level. The engineer was also in a significantly different time zone from the rest of the team, had to do work that was not their expertise and that they weren’t interested in learning either. It wasn’t a temporary dip in performance, but a clear mis-levelling.
So this EM was trying to mitigate the situation through time-intensive coaching and pairing, meeting them outside his own hours. But it wasn’t sustainable and he was crossing his personal boundaries. Directing the details of their work also meant he was doing some of their work for them.
They asked their Director what to do about their under-performing engineer, and were told “put them on a PIP”. I agreed that was the best answer.
PIP stands for “Performance Improvement Plan”. If you’ve worked anywhere that uses this jargon, you’ve probably experienced PIPs at their worst: a foregone conclusion before firing someone; a vague, inescapable process left to a manager’s subjectivity; or simply as punishment. It’s not always that bad, but as they are so often inexpertly crafted, they can certainly feel like it.
But a PIP doesn’t have to be those things! A PIP done with empathy and hope is a measurable, time-bound, actionable, attainable plan for a teamie to get back on track. It’s as much work for the manager, and everyone involved wants the plan to succeed. An experienced person (e.g. someone from HR, or a more senior manager) helps craft a plan that is enacted with discretion, holds a high standard, tightly clarifies expectations (for manager and teamie), and builds on the teamie’s strengths and mitigates their weaknesses.
To this manager, a PIP sounded harsh, even unfair. The engineer hadn’t chosen this team, and was it their fault they were mis-levelled? I said, given the constraints, he needed to use all the tools he had available, and that his self-sacrifice would burn him out, and still fail.
It seems terribly mercenary, but if they can’t do their job they are wasted headcount. You have to consider the impact on you as a manager, the impact on their colleagues, the optics of them getting away with not doing work to a standard, and the pressure on that teamie, trying to get them to do work they don’t want to do at a level they aren’t ready to operate at.
Leaving this engineer in this situation will probably mean them getting burnt out, performing worse, and still putting them on a PIP, too late to succeed. It’s much kinder to set clear boundaries now and set expectations to work at the level of their role. If it doesn’t work, fire them while they have energy and drive, and before they have a negative impact on the team.
Sometimes the kindest (or “best worst”) thing to do is let them go to find the work they want to do.
