Guide
The guide
Plain explanations of how performance improvement plans work, what the law where you live changes about them, and what the named processes at large employers actually involve. Each page says when it was last checked and what it rests on.
Start here
- What a performance improvement plan actually is
A PIP is a document and a period. What nearly every one contains, what a missing section tells you, and what the first days are for.
Questions, answered
- Deadlines after a PIP ends: every clock, shortest first
The time to challenge an ending runs from seven days in one UK case to two years in most of Canada. Every clock the guide covers, shortest first.
- Does a PIP mean I am being fired? The four shapes plans take
A plan does not say what the employer has decided, and nobody outside the room can. The four shapes one HR practitioner sorts real plans into.
- How employers are advised to run a PIP: their own playbook
HR vendors publish how to run a plan and employers' counsel how to defend one. Knowing the script tells you what is supposed to happen next.
- How long a PIP lasts, and whether it can end early
Thirty, sixty or ninety days is the template answer, and no law here sets a length. Whether you can be dismissed before the date splits by country.
- How to complete a PIP: what passing looks like, in writing
Passing is meeting the goals as written, by the dates written, visibly. What to ask for in the first fortnight, what to keep, and what to hold at the end.
- How to respond to a PIP in writing: the five parts
Whether you sign depends on where you are. Sending a dated written response does not. The five parts one contains, and wording to adapt for each.
- Job searching during a PIP: what to tell interviewers
A search is the second track, not a decision to leave. What a reference can reveal in nine countries, and what to say when an interviewer asks.
- On a PIP during probation: what protection you have, where
Probation narrows the route an employer has to take, by different amounts per country. Answered for Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Canada.
- PIP or written warning: which one you have been given
Usually not the same document, and in two of these four countries the warning is the one with legal weight while the plan has none at all.
- PIP severance: what to ask for, and when to ask, by country
Severance after a PIP is a statutory right almost nowhere. What you can ask for, and when to ask, set out for ten countries rather than in general.
- PIP success rates: why none of the numbers is a statistic
Where every number in circulation came from, what each one actually measures, and why your own plan is the thing that can tell you anything.
- Should I resign during a PIP? Usually it costs you money
Usually not. In most of the ten countries here it forfeits the unemployment benefit, and gives up what the law hands a dismissed person.
- Should I sign a PIP? Where it is receipt and where agreement
The signature line means receipt in most templates and agreement in the UK. Where to sign and object separately, and where not to sign at all.
- What a real PIP looks like: five published specimens
Some employers publish their plan forms. Five specimens, read side by side, show the same skeleton, different signature lines and one widening clause.
- What to say in a PIP meeting: four meetings, four scripts
Ask rather than argue, decide nothing in the room, get it in writing, and write your own recap the same day. Wording for each of the four meetings.
- When a PIP needs a lawyer, and what to bring
Three situations where this guide stops and says get specialist advice, and the documents worth having in your hand before the first meeting.
By country
- On a PIP in the US: no law requires it, and what that means
No US law requires a PIP before a termination. What it does is create the written record both sides will argue from later.
- On a PIP while your green card waits in the India queue
- How long a PIP lasts, and whether it can end early
- On a PIP in a US government or university job: due process
- On a PIP over 40 in the US: age, and what signing decides
- On a PIP while pregnant, or on FMLA leave: the US rules
- On a PIP with a disability in the US: ask what it measures
- PIP or written warning: which one you have been given
- US unemployment benefit after a PIP
- On a US work visa when a PIP ends badly
- UK performance improvement plan: ACAS, and whether to sign
ACAS sets out what a fair capability process contains: support, informal steps first, specific objectives. A plan that skips those falls short.
- How long a PIP lasts, and whether it can end early
- A UK performance improvement plan after reporting wrongdoing
- A performance improvement plan in UK financial services
- PIP or written warning: which one you have been given
- UK benefits after a performance improvement plan ends
- Skilled Worker visa when a performance improvement plan ends
- On a PIP in Ireland: procedure decides, and the WRC clock
Ireland weighs process heavily: employers largely win on substance and lose on procedure. And your job-search log is literally the compensation.
- On a PIP in Estonia: the hoiatus, and the benefit line
Estonia has no PIP in law and no ordinary dismissal. The document that matters is the hoiatus, and which subsection it cites decides your benefit.
- On a PIP in the Netherlands: can they actually dismiss me?
Not on their own. A Dutch employer has to win a case at the UWV or the court first, and the verbetertraject is a precondition for it.
- On a PIP in Canada: the plan is not what decides the money
No Canadian law requires a PIP, and failing one rarely gives just cause. What an ending is worth comes from your contract and your province.
- On a PIP in Spain: the 33-day tariff, and why not to resign
Spain has no statutory PIP. It has two dismissal routes, a 33-day tariff that works as a price list, and a rule that makes resigning expensive.
- On a PIP in Portugal: three doors, and the benefit trap
Portugal prohibits dismissal without just cause, so performance cases run through one of three doors. The most common one can cost you your benefit.
- On a PIP in Germany: the Abmahnung, not the plan
In Germany the plan is management practice and the Abmahnung is the legal instrument. Before either matters, check the two thresholds.
- On a PIP in France: insuffisance, the barème and the rupture
French law separates insuffisance professionnelle from fault, and getting that classification wrong is the most common employer error.
By employer process
- Amazon PIP: Focus, Pivot, severance and the appeal
Amazon runs two stages before the formal plan, gates internal transfers behind VP approval, and prices every door. Five days to choose between three.
- Google PIP: GRAD ratings, the retired check-in, and the plan
Google's Support Check-In is reported discontinued since 2023, and the plan's reported length varies widely. What is a warning, and what is a plan.
- Meta PIP in 2026: Checkpoint, and what replaced the triggers
Meta replaced its six-tier rating scale with Checkpoint in 2026, so the widely repeated PIP triggers describe a system that no longer exists.
- Microsoft PIP: the 16-week offer and the rehire ban
Microsoft reportedly offers one choice: enter the plan, or take a fixed 16-week separation. Why the transfer block matters more than the rehire ban.
Fairhanded is not a law firm and this is not legal advice. Where your situation turns on a legal question, take it to someone qualified where you live.