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Comment by the_jeremy | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this is news to anyone. Yes, Amazon has an "unregretted attrition" target. The only surprising thing was this:

> The company expects more than one-third of employees on performance improvement plans to fail, documents show

I assumed it was much higher.

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Agreed. Anecdotally, I have never seen a PIP lead to a turn around. Honestly, I started to think it was just a way to cover for wrongful termination.

What I have seen is PIPs lead to so much stress and anxiety that people are unrecoverable.

I unfortunately worked with one person where a PIP led to hospitalization for thoughts of self-harm, because it was clear there wasn't going to be success in the current role, but there was no way to exit effectively (and there were confounding personal-life stress/factors). The whole thing was a horrific mess, starting with a nepotism hire, and finishing with unacceptably incompetent HR.

PIP means different things at different companies. It's true that some companies really just use PIPs as a documentation period to build a case to fire people.

A lot of managers and companies I know have moved away from the "PIP" terminology because the acronym has become too toxic to be productive. Instead, they'll have different names for their version of the program.

With few exceptions, managers don't enjoy firing people. We don't enjoy PIPing people, either. A good PIP (or whatever a company calls it) is usually structured as a mentorship program that lays out clear expectations for what is expected from an employee, pairs them up with mentors who can help get them there, and involves more frequent check-ins than normal to help get them on track.

As a manager, I have seen many PIPs succeed, if executed properly. I've also seen many fail. One of the common failure modes is when the employee assumes the worst and doesn't bother trying to improve. That's one of the main reasons smart companies don't use the "PIP" terminology any more.

I was under the impression that a PIP was nearly always a "here's your chance to get another job" warning, and never really an earnest chance to improve. Does anyone understand differently?

I was put on a PIP at Google and kept my job afterwards, they basically put massive training wheels on you. I had a director checking in with me 2-3 a week to put the pressure on, even doing some pair programming which was interesting. They really are trying to figure out why you aren't working well and see if you are a lost cause.

Can you elaborate on the "interesting" aspect of pairing with the director?

I guess it shows that they weren't just going to take a manager's word it and that multiple levels of management engaged in a PIP. Especially with how busy this director was typically, it was a use of their time that I didn't expect. Also, having a director be competent enough as an IC to pair program was something I hadn't experienced or expected.

I was "put on a PIP" by my boss at AMZN, but it turned out it wasn't really a PIP (i.e. - HR wasn't involved). It was just my boss trying to pressure me to work 50 hours per week during the holidays instead of the typical 60.

> It was just my boss trying to pressure me to work 50 hours per week during the holidays instead of the typical 60.

I'm not following.

Is this sarcasm/humor? Why would your boss put you on a PIP to pressure you to work LESS?

I think they mean 50 hours a week during holidays instead of ZERO, which is the typical holiday workload. The manager saw the holidays as a minor discount to regular time-commitment.

Why would he work during holidays?

You don't really know if HR was involved or not.

From personal contacts, the same happens at Facebook. If your performance is good, it means you're not being pushed enough and you need to increase your workload. What a despicable work culture that you have to expect to be told that you're not meeting expectations and that you have to be worked to that extent.

Yeah, I’ve heard it’s similarly bad at Facebook but people there don’t seem to complain as much because they’re the types of gunners that work 60 hours and claim they work 30.

85% - 100% is technically "more than one-third".

I think they may be conflating Focus and PIP/Pivot, since they mention 35% w.r.t. focus later in the article.

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