Getting a struggling employee back on track

Do you have an underperforming employee who has been falling short of expectations recently? Have they missed deadlines or negatively impacted the team dynamics? You might want to consider implementing a Performance Improvement Plan, writes the Harvard Business Review. 

A formal approach to address performance gaps, a PIP can address both failures to meet job goals or behavior-related concerns. The plan outlines issues as well as defines and outlines what new outputs are needed and by when. 

While PIPs sometimes have a bad reputation with leaders and HR professionals who can see them as adversarial, punitive and controlling, there are preconditions that should be considered to make a PIP successful, author Liane Davey writes. It’s important that you and the employee can both see a clear path to improved performance. 

To make the plan more effective, Davey suggests it should address root causes for the slips in meeting previous expectations and should be future-focused. 

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