Employee performance improvement plans

Overview

This in-depth training plan was built to rebrand performance improvement plans into a helpful, positive experience, combining needs assessment, live coaching, curated training content, and more.

Responsibilities: Needs assessment, development, template creation, creating the first plan, delivering and meeting about the plan until completion

Target Audience: Agency employees

Tools Used: Google Docs, Teamwork

Client: Remotish

Year: 2020

Problem

One of the team members I managed had been working at the company for a while and was struggling with overworking while trying to meet expectations. Our company culture emphasized work/life balance or work/life integration, and we limited the number of hours team members can work (overwork is a big problem in agency cultures). The company also emphasized learning, so we wanted to develop a training or learning plan to help the team member practice skills that are hard to define or difficult to learn on their own. We recognized that remote work has specific challenges, so clearly outlining written steps toward improvement could be helpful for being happier at work and creating jobs we love.

Solution

A written plan to help employees who are struggling to be successful, who may be overworking to try to compensate for it but are not showing signs of improvement. It is usually not about specific skills and more about broad behaviors that lead to career success.

The signed plan has weekly check-in meetings, specific goals and tactics, resources to learn from, deadlines to complete each goal, a deadline to complete the whole plan, and self-reporting throughout the three months that the employee combines into a report about what they’ve learned and how they think their performance improved in these areas during this time.

Through research, the closest existing name for such a plan was a performance improvement plan (PIP), but those plans are often perceived as "HR documenting so you can legally fire someone." We didn't want to scare people into thinking they would be fired, so we had a lot of explanation that our type of plan was to help them be more successful and less stressed, possibly to meet expectations so they could then work on earning a promotion after completing the plan.

This was the first type of performance plan created. Later, we did need more of the traditional plan for critical performance issues, one last chance after they had already been through our first performance plan (we called that critical plan the performance action plan since they needed to take action or the company would have to take action of termination). For the other direction of training, we also started doing custom promotion planning, so there were three levels of plans.

This performance improvement plan was the most in-depth and took a lot of critical thinking and research from the manager to identify the (often interconnecting) problem(s) and then creating specific goals, tasks, and resources for helping the team member improve.

A team member could request one if they felt themselves struggling, or a manager could identify the need for one.

Examples:

Internal wiki describing these three performance plans
Template for the performance improvement plan
Filled-in example of the plan (cleansed for privacy)

Process

Analysis: Researched by analyzing 1-1 meeting notes, project management system information, communications, and more to identify the main issues holding the employee back from being successful and causing overwork. Also researched existing performance training/plans that other companies had, to see what types of information to include to help the team member the most.
Design: Decided how the content and activities would be delivered and supported to help hold the team member accountable.
Development: Created and filled in the template, researching resources and training specific to each goal. Reviewing the plan at certain points with my manager (the CEO) for feedback and changes.
Implementation: First we explained the purpose of the plan (to not scare the employee) and scheduled a meeting with the employee, me (manager), and my manager (CEO), to go over the plan, get it signed, and read through it with the employee to answer questions and clarify where needed. The employee made any related tasks they needed in the project management system themselves and set up recurring meetings.
Evaluation: Evaluation for each goal was written into the plan at certain milestones. Evaluation after completion of the plan was not defined to measure performance after the plan. (This is an area I would improve now. We were still a young company, so we didn't have metrics in place to measure before and after, or standard surveys on a regular basis.)
Continuous Improvement: Making feasible improvements on a regular basis, using feedback from the employee and learnings from management from the implementation or results of the plan.

Results & Takeaways

The first employee to go through this plan showed significant improvement in performance, and gave positive feedback for this training. This was at a critical point in the company where the team was growing, so completing this training appeared to give the team member confidence to be a role model for the team and help teach others. Clients were happier, and business was increasing. The team member was promoted within a few months of completing this plan.