Okay so I work in one of those amazing tech companies where you have to submit 360 feedbacks every 6 months & will be PIPed etc. As here because unfortunately the programming related communities seem pretty inactive.
My former manager had putted me on a PIP before switching teams (first time ever in my 10 YOE). I somehow managed to survive that and now was asked to provide a 360 feedback for this old manager who PIPed me.
I didn’t bother to answer the request, but now the skip level of that manager reached out via Slack and wants my feedback because they’re having „additional calibration sessions“. He asked me to provide it via Slack „to save time“.
I asked ChatGPT to word it in corporate speak so it sounds diplomatic even though it’s like 70% „constructive feedback“, but I’m wondering if I have anything to gain from this.
Would you send the feedback? Is it weird that they want it via Slack when it takes like 2 minutes more to fill this out in Workday?
Performance improvement plan.
This. Some tech company bs. The measures compiled into it are often vague or impossible to achieve. Mostly it’s a tool to create a paper trail for firing you. They will say that you didn’t manage to achieve the goals of the plan, hence you’re fired. Sometimes people survive it. Sometimes it’s also genuinely meant to help improve your performance. One could argue that if you have a good feedback loop with your manager it won’t ever get this far, so mostly this tool is just used to get rid of unwanted people. Some companies have a quota of people to be put into this, e.g. Amazon.
It’s not just implemented by tech companies, it’s pretty standard across the board for salaried positions.
Good to know! I worked in finance & consulting before and have never really seen it there or heard of it. Maybe I got lucky with the areas I was working in.
Not all PIP are that bad. Unfortunately it’s mostly a final chance type situation. Most decent managers try and sort problems out long before it gets to PIP levels. When it happens, it’s a final chance to turn things around. It also formalises the evidence gathering that they tried to fix it, but couldn’t.
Unfortunately, some companies abuse it. They also tend to be the ones with high staff turnover however, so it looks a lot common.