Work Ethics Question

[yowza]

In similar times, ie economic downturn with RIF's occurring/pending, a friend who was in management came to the defense of another manager's employee who the friend felt was being unfairly targeted. I warned the friend that was extremely unwise, would be seen as not being a "team player" and was likely to lead to personal repercussions, but it was too late, the friend had already interceded but unsuccessfully since the targeted employee was soon thereafter gone. Not long afterwards, the friend was assigned a "special project" that was doomed to failure since it was totally outside of the friend's area of expertise and customary field of operations. Surprise, it "didn't meet standards" and received an unsatisfactory rating, and the friend was included in the next round of RIF's.

Best to stay in your lane, if your associate is not found to be performing satisfactorily and in this case it sounds like that's actually the case, any personal involvement carries considerable risk of personal expense. If that person's manager hopes you'll say something to cause the associate's exit, that manager isn't doing their job and if anything goes wrong that manager may very well be willing to point to you and the cause. Lose-lose, for you and your associate.

By pointing a recruiter in their direction, you've already done a very good thing, trying to point them to a safe exit. Beyond that, if he starts talking about plans for a significant purchase or life event, major purchase or addition to family or whatever, you could strongly advise how that seems like a very unwise thing to do given the current economic climate or whatever excuse might play well.

Every entity in existence has internal politics at play. Some version of Survivor is going on. I told our kids that very thing. One of the first things you need to do when starting somewhere is to determine who people are. There are always a few that seem to be buddies but are really snakes. Then there are people who are just snakes and don't even try to hide it and those are easy to spot.

 

[Cyclones_R_GR8]

In regards to the original post I would just let it play out. His boss had no business even hinting to you that this person was going to be let go.

 

[ZRF]

His manager should be working with him on it. I work for a large company (well huge now, Oracle just bought us this year) and we have formal Performance Improvement Plans that require monthly updates to HR. It's a year tops once you're on one to improve or you get shown the door.

It's okay, you can say Cerner. Everybody knows.

 

[VeloClone]

I don't buy into the "if he doesn't know its his own fault" thing. I have a report on a PIP right now who was repeatedly given corrections for their work and was told "we expect better" and "I'm disappointed" and "this needs to improve" at review stages of projects and was SHOCKED when they were put on a PIP in their most recent review. That's probably not a good reflection on me as their manager but I'm not sure how to be any more clear than I was.

I do agree with the people that suggested above that a PIP is just the first step in showing someone the door. MOST managers I have worked with would basically say "you've gotten to this point because you wouldn't take training or improvements before so I'm over it" and the PIP is basically just letting you know you have X days before the company let's you go to find a landing spot.

If s/he was truly given this feedback at multiple stages s/he wasn't shocked, s/he was feigning shock. Or s/he is one of those people who believes no matter how badly they perform the employer will never fire them.

I have had to hire and fire a lot of people in my day. I have had people who have had multiple poor annual reviews, have had multiple coachings placed in their files, had oral reprimands, written reprimands and suspensions and when we finally get around to termination they are "shocked".