Leadership involves all the difficult situations that most people tend to avoid. However, as leaders it is our responsibility to take those difficult situations and turn them into constructive encounters. No one enjoys telling an employee that their performance is subpar but there are productive ways to have this discussion. A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) is one of the tools I use to identify the specific areas that an employee is struggling, identify the tools they need to improve, and give them a timeline to achieve success. It’s important note that these discussions do not have to be technical in nature. PIP’s are also used for behavioral issues such as conduct detrimental to work environment.
A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) is one of the tools I use to identify the specific areas that an employee is struggling, identify the tools they need to improve, and give them a timeline to achieve success.
I begin by identifying the job tasks that are not being performed at the expected level of competency. The key here is identifying specific job tasks that the employee can work on. For example, let’s say when John Doe works in Hematology, stat turnaround times aren’t met. When meeting with John, don’t say something like “you need to be better at hematology.” Instead, say “I need you to work on completing stat samples within the turnaround time. How can we make that happen?” Listing generalized deficiencies doesn’t give the employee a real sense of what they need to work on.
Second, clearly identify the expected improvement that the employee needs to achieve. Using our example above, we would tell John that we expect stat turnaround times for CBCs with differentials need to be less than 60 minutes when he is working in Hematology.
The last step is to determine a fair time frame to give the employee a fair chance to succeed. For our example we may monitor John’s stat CBC turnaround times for 30 days. At the end the PIP is evaluated to determine whether or not the employee has met their stated plan. If the answer is no, you need to have a serious discussion with the employee. You may find yourself asking him if he might be successful outside of your laboratory. As leaders we must be willing to have those tough conversations. In the long run, however, a 30 day performance improvement plan is much more efficient than three to six months of training a new employee.
-Matthew Herasuta
Lablogatory 