We are a manufacturing plant in New Mexico. We have an employee who was put on a 90 day Performance Improvement Plan on April 22nd, 2008. In the plan she was instructed that if improvements were not made within 90 days her employment would be terminated. She was also told that she and her supervisor would have monthly progress meetings. There was a lot of employee turnover for her supervisor during that period and the monthly meetings were not held. The 90 days ended on the 22nd of July but nothing was said or done about her performance at that time. Now her supervisor wants to readdress the PIP, due to more problems with her performance. What would be the best course of action at this point? I don't feel termination would be the smartest choice since we didn't follow through on our end with the monthly updates and the fact that it's after the 90 day period. Should we start fresh with a new PIP? If so, what time frame do you suggest? I appreciate any thoughts and responses. Donna

I agree that based on the employer not following through with their end of the bargain that terminating this employee right now is not a good idea.  I think you meet with the employee, let her know that she has not improved her performance since the last meeting.  Not knowing exactly what she is doing wrong or not doing, I would say that you meet with her on a weekly basis.  It is hard for me to tell you how long to give her to improve since I don't know what the issues are.  Say she isn't meeting her productivity goals.  I would retrain her on the process for the job and set weekly goals so that by the end of 4 weeks she is up to standard.  Meeting with her weekly will help to make sure she is on track.

Another thing to consider is what you have done in the past for people in similar situations.

This is a case of "do the right thing."

 

The Company did not make good on it's promise to give her milestone feedback and direction on a monthly basis, which could be part if not the very basis of her failure to perform.  You should extend the period in my opinion.

The company's lack of attentiveness means to the employee and the courts that everything was going well enough - or it would have been addressed.

If the employee is truly doing poorly, then another meeting must be held, pointing out the issues and a time frame for correcting them as well as any assistance to be provided by the company to correct the issues (additional training, etc.)

You cannot terminate this employee because you didn't give him/her a chance to improve - you withheld the monthly meetings and the employee would not be wrong to presume that everything isn't quite as bad as it was. I agree with the other posters in that you need to look at what you have done in the past (striving for consistency), and that the mere fact that the company failed to follow up on its agreement could be the same reason (or connected to) why the employee is doing so poorly.