What is a Performance Improvement Plan Template and why is it Important?
Performance Improvement Plans (PIP) are often viewed in a bad light by employees, but it is important that we start recognising them as an effective tool to performance growth.
PIPs are designed to help employees and should be viewed as a useful tool to facilitate skill and overall job performance improvement.
Performance improvement plan templates can also help employees who are not performing to the expected standard within their role.
An employee might not be meeting expectations through no fault of their own. For example, their lack of experience could be a result of insufficient training on the organisations’ behalf.
Performance Improvement Plan Templates can help identify an employee’s areas of weakness and outlines a set of clear and achievable goals that an employee must work towards to improve their skills, attitude and/or overall job performance.
PIPs are important as they foster a sense of accountability in the workplace helping to promote engagement and ownership from your employees.
When establishing a Performance Improvement Plan Template it is important to have a thorough discussion with the employee in question to ensure that they understand and are comfortable with the goals and timeframes that have been set for them.
How to Create your own Performance Improvement Plan Template
As with any form it is important to include a section that will allow you to collect specific data about the employee said form is associated with to ensure both traceability.
For a performance improvement plan template, you should include fields to record important details about a specific employee including their name, role, department, and their supervisor.
Next it is important that you create a section to record key dates for the completion of the PIP.
Achievable time goals are critical to an effective Performance Improvement Plan Template; therefore, it is important that you have fields where the start and end dates of the PIP are clearly outlined.
This helps the employee clearly understand what is expected of them.
We also advise including at least one field to record a review date; however, your organisation may review the progress of the Performance Improvement Plan Template more frequently to ensure the employee is moving in the right direction.
It is crucial to include a field on your Performance Improvement Plan Template where the key areas of concern regarding an employee’s performance can be thoroughly recorded.
It is key that the root causes of the performance issues are identified before implementing solutions as it ensures that the goals implemented will be truly effective in helping the employee to improve their performance.
Our free example which can be downloaded below, also includes a field where previously addressed issues can be recorded.
Recording previous performance issues can help you determine whether the issue is a recurring one and therefore help you in determining the best course of action to help the employee.
Next you will want to include a field where achievable goals and their expected outcomes can be recorded.
This helps set out a clear guide for the employee ensuring they understand your expectations and establishes accountability.
Our example also includes a field where you can record any extra support or dependencies the employee may need to help facilitate the PIP.
This helps show your commitment to helping the employee improve their skills and performance by evidencing the time and resources you will dedicate to help facilitate their growth.
Lastly do not forget to include a field for the collection of signatures from both the person implementing the PIP and the employee the Performance Improvement Plan Template has been designed for.
This helps establish traceability and accountability and clearly evidences that the employee has thoroughly understood and is comfortable with the goals and timeframes that have been set for them.
Using Jomo247 to Automate your Performance Improvement Plan Template
With Jomo247, you can automate your performance improvement plan template through our forms feature.
You can insert the performance improvement evaluation as a step in one of your HR processes, so it will automatically be done at regular intervals in the right place in your HR workflow.
Alternatively, you can download the PDF version of our Performance Improvement Plan Template below.
