Performance Recovery Plan - Any Experiences?

RosemaryWoodhouse

Hello,
I'm not really new, but I've lost access to my old account.

I think I'm going to be put on a Performance Recovery Plan at work.  This is causing me a lot of anxiety as I have never heard of a Performance Recovery Plan ending with the person the plan applies to keeping their job.  Mostly people seem to find alternative employment before the plan runs it's course. 

This option isn't open to me at present as I am pregnant and too far along to hide this fact in an interview.  I also doubt many employers are recruiting for roles I'd have a chance of getting at present anyway.

As you might guess the anxiety I am feeling is not helping my performance.  I wondered if anyone on here had any experience of a Performance Recovery Plan that resulted in the person involved keeping their job?  Hearing some positive outcomes might help me get things in perspective.

Thank you for reading.
R

Dox

RosemaryWoodhouse said:

Hello,
I'm not really new, but I've lost access to my old account.

I think I'm going to be put on a Performance Recovery Plan at work.  This is causing me a lot of anxiety as I have never heard of a Performance Recovery Plan ending with the person the plan applies to keeping their job.  Mostly people seem to find alternative employment before the plan runs it's course. 

This option isn't open to me at present as I am pregnant and too far along to hide this fact in an interview.  I also doubt many employers are recruiting for roles I'd have a chance of getting at present anyway.

As you might guess the anxiety I am feeling is not helping my performance.  I wondered if anyone on here had any experience of a Performance Recovery Plan that resulted in the person involved keeping their job?  Hearing some positive outcomes might help me get things in perspective.

Thank you for reading.
R

One joy of the telephone interview, which is normally how firms are operating just now...'hides' the evidence!

More seriously, you do have a much better chance of a good outcome with your PRP simply because you are pregnant and most employers are keenly aware of how hard it can be to prove that if they dismiss a pregnant woman, it was not for pregnancy related reasons. That applies however short the period of employment.

Why do you think being put on a PRP is likely? What is going wrong - and if you are honest, are you substantially at fault or are there aspects of your performance that, with effort and support, you could improve to adequate levels? A well structured PRP needs to set out the issues being addressed, the timescale on which improvement is required and (crucially) how 'success' will be measured. Vague, subjective 'targets' which can't be quantified are pretty useless, but are all too common - one reason why PRPs so often don't achieve their objectives. 

It's understandable that you feel both anxious and threatened - many employees do, but the more so when they are pregnant and the world is so uncertain - but that doesn't mean the PRP will fail. It could actually turn things around, at the very least until you are able to start your maternity leave.

RosemaryWoodhouse

Hi Dox

Thank you for your response.

I think a PRP is likely because at my 1 to 1 in March my manager said we would have to take that route if things didn't improve and they haven't (this isn't the first time a PRP has been mentioned but it's the first time I've been given the impression it was impending rather than a vague threat).  The issues revolve around my interactions with other people.  (I'm not in a customer facing role these are purely internal interactions.)  It's not too much of a problem when we aren't too busy and I can take my time working out my responses but people will insist on asking me difficult questions right when I'm really busy (typical, right? haha).   Then the feedback I have received from my manager is that I'm "blunt" and "make us look like we don't know what we're doing".

With the right support I don't think this would be insurmountable but I'm given to understand from our company policy documents that a typical PRP runs for three to six months and I don't think that is enough time for a significant improvement.  Dealing with other people is really not something that comes easily to me so improving it would take a lot of time and energy.

We've just come out of a busy period and it hasn't gone well.  We are having a team meeting tomorrow to discuss what has gone wrong in terms of the process and I feel that to some if not a large extent it's my cross-training of other team members that has not been up to scratch.  I did my best but I guess it just wasn't good enough.

Ultimately I do think I need to find a different role that better suits my skill set but I need time to do that.  

To add a bit of context, I'm an accountant working for a large firm in the financial services sector.  I've been in my current role for 3 years and I've been with the company just over 7 and 1/2 years altogether.

Thanks again
R

Dox

You've got an unusually high degree of self-honesty and insight, which should be a huge help if you genuinely want to change your own behaviour - but if that is the aspect of the job you find most uncomfortable it may, as you suspect, be better to look for a role where this won't be under so much scrutiny. Alternatively, make it clear to your employer that you would welcome help and training to try and alter your responses to make them more, say, emollient?

Whatever the outcome, a PRP running for 3 to 6 months should, with luck, take you well into your maternity leave period, so no danger of being jobless and without maternity pay. Whether you can avoid brooding on the matter while you are on leave is rather more difficult.

I hope all goes well for you, personally and professionally.

BrassicWoman

I’ve seen many people go through prps and would say around two thirds get to the right level. Make sure it has development in it, to help you train, and observation of you work followed by coaching. If the content is all just targets, it won’t do anything for you.

Comms69

Ensure that appropriate support, in form of training etc is available. 

a PRP is a tool because they want to keep you on. Otherwise why bother, watch you fail and then dismiss for poor performance.