Chapter 6

Assignment: Developing a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

Performance improvement plans, or PIPs, can be one of the most powerful tools for managing employee performance. Used correctly, a performance improvement plan can help a struggling employee get back on track or improve an area of weakness, so that the employee can move on to continued growth and opportunities within the organization.

In addition to correcting and improving employee performance, which is the desired outcome, a PIP can also protect the company when improvement does not occur. A PIP creates a paper trail that documents where improvement in performance did and did not occur, as well as what the company did to assist the employee toward a successful outcome. Another advantage of the PIP is that it typically costs less to work to improve an existing employee’s performance than to recruit, hire, and train a new employee.

To begin this Assignment, you will examine the case study, “Missed Pickup Means a Missed Opportunity for 30 Seeking a Fellowship,” provided in this week’s resources.

Then, to complete this Assignment, review the Learning Resources for this week, and other resources you have found in the Walden Library or online, and respond to the following bullets in a 3- to 5-page paper, which will include 2 Appendices.

• Begin your paper with an introduction and then provide a summary of the case study.

• Prepare a needs assessment to analyze both employees’ skill levels identified in the scenario.

• Based on the needs assessment, prepare an analysis of what should have happened, and what actually did happen, in the scenario.

• Based on the needs assessment, evaluate the appropriateness among possible choices of action (strategies), including discipline, development, improvement, or termination for the two employees.

• As a Human Resources professional, create a performance improvement plan for each employee that outlines the following:

o Expected behaviors;

o Metrics for improvement;

o Required action steps;

o Consequences for not meeting the plan’s expected outcomes;

o Their manager’s role.

• Prepare instructions for the manager on how to conduct a meeting with each employee about improvements and consequences.

Your Assignment must include 3–5 references to support your thinking.

Learning Resources

Note: To access this week’s library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Required Readings

Note: It is highly recommended that you review the resources in the following order.

Aguinis, H. (2019). Performance management (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

• Chapter 10 – “Performance Management, Rewards, and the Law,” pp. 301–321

Hofeditz, M., Nienaber, A.-M., Dysvik, A., & Schewe, G. (2017). “Want to” versus “have to”: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators as predictors of compliance behavior intention. Human Resource Management, 56(1), 25–49. doi:10.1002/hrm.21774

Budworth, M.-H., Latham, G. P., & Manroop, L. (2015). Looking forward to performance improvement: A field test of the feedforward interview for performance management. Human Resource Management, 54(1), 45–54. doi:10.1002/hrm.21618

Heathfield, S. M. (2019, February 13). Performance improvement plan: Contents and a sample form. Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/performance-improvement… 

Mooney, J. (2016, January 12). Creating a performance improvement plan: Role for HR, supervisors. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/e… 

Case Study: Murphy, D. E. (2004, February 5). Missed pickup means a missed opportunity for 30 seeking a fellowship. The New York Times, p. 18. Reprinted by permission of The New York Times via the Copyright Clearance Center.

Required Media

DiDonato, T. (© 2015). Pay for Performance Isn’t Enough [Media file]. Available from Skillsoft at https://laureate.skillport.com/skillportfe/main.ac… OURSE_TOPIC/93248

Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 4 minutes.