Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) Creation Checklist

This checklist is meant to support you in the designing and creation of your own PIP. 

Performance improvement plans are known to create stress for those receiving them due to certain negative connotations surrounding them. These spring mostly from stories of employers misusing PIPs to signal the 'beginning of the end' for an employee's position at an organization. 

In fact, PIPs should be quite the opposite. 

Performance improvement plans are meant to be a deliberate process designed to help an employee improve in their role so that they can begin to thrive in their job, ideally leaving them with a newfound resolve to succeed. 

However, this can take quite a bit of work. Use this template to smoothen out the process for you so that you can spend more time implementing the PIP and less time creating it.

Fill out the basic details below.

Write down details of where the employee in question has fallen short regarding their performance/responsibilities. Remember to include the corresponding date of the issues' occurrences as well as the required and/or expected standard of performance. 

You can add additional issues as shown in the GIF below by editing the template.

Be descriptive, listing out the goals or levels of performance that the employee needs to reach in order to successfully complete the personal improvement plan.

Examples: 

• Reporting for advertisement performance must be completed each week on Monday and submitted to the proper Slack Channel.
• The employee must arrive on time each day for the next four weeks.
• The employee must deliver their weekly article for review by 3 p.m. every Friday. The article must be free of grammatical errors. 

List the various resources that the employee can use for support while following the PIP.

Examples: 

• The employee may work shadow colleague X in prioritizing their daily tasks for improved productivity.
• For help in writing blog articles, the employee can view this article on the matter and utilize the writing checklist within it.
• The employee may ask their supervisor for support regarding X task.

Write down the date that the PIP begins and ends, as well as the various check-in meetings that will happen in between.

You can edit the template to add in more check-in dates.

Clearly write out descriptions of all consequences should the employee fail to reach the goals or performance levels outlined in the PIP within the timeframe they are given.

When creating your PIP, make sure you include space for any parties involved to enter in their dated signatures. Once the relevant signatures are accounted for, the implementation of the PIP can begin.