Have your PIP cases ever succeeded?

My CTO comes to me and tells me to put a guy in his team on PIP because his performance has been dipping with no hope of survival in future. 'We have been giving regular feedback but there's been no improvement', he says. 'What exactly are the issues', I quiz. After a long conversation, here are some of the issues he brings up:

1. His ownership levels have been dipping
2. His tasks are needed to be reminded time and again
3. A very casual approach towards work - has been making silly mistakes that even a fresher will not
4. Taking too many unplanned leaves

Many of us will rely on the judgement of our line managers, have an almost one-sided conversation with the person in question, ask him to fill a standard 'PIP' form and tell him that we are going to monitor you...you better perform or perish! The guy who is already demotivated, has also lost his confidence (may be) and now completely switched off to put any efforts. The next minute, instead of looking at the PIP objectives he has to achieve, he would login to various job portals and update his CV. He finds a job and moves on...while we are relived of a bad performing employee. Story over!

Conclusion: We feel we gave him a fair chance to improve, but he didn't put in any efforts and rather chose the easier way out.

But are we right in this approach?

Were these performance issues or behavioral issues? Was PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) the right method to rectify behavioral issues? Has this been the case with the employee all along or just recently? Has anything changed around him drastically? A new manager may be? A new hire in his team? Any change in his personal life? A change in role? Or no change in role for a long long time? An unfair increment/bonus when compared to his other folks whom he thinks are equally competent as him?

There can be many permutations and combinations. Its simple to access a skill issue/culture fitment issue when an employee is hardly 3-6 months old and not performing. But for people who have spent time, did well (may be in spikes) earlier need to be diagnosed with utter genuineness. That's when we are being fair with the employee!

The real success to these PIP programs is when the person wakes up from his slumber and gets back to his fighting best to become a high performer. And not a method to weed out people who 'we' think are bad apples. And that's what great organizations should aim for.

We must start taking employees dipping performance a warning for us as HR and line managers for something that has gone wrong, somewhere, that needs to be diagnosed quickly and actioned.

We manage careers and cannot afford to be casual with them!