The Second You (Formally) Document An Employee, Consider Them Gone

What is the actual purpose of writing up an employee?

Ever been written up at work? Your employer may call it “formal counseling”, a “performance improvement plan”, a “warning with terminable action” or any other corporate nonsense. I don’t care about the lingo — it’s formal documentation. If you are among those who’ve been written up, you’re probably not likely to admit it.

I’ll help by going first and saying I’ve certainly been documented by my employer before, and we’ll get into that a little later. But for now, I want to focus on one thing and one thing only:

What is the actual purpose of documenting an employee?

You’ll find the answer to this question differs from company to company and even from manager to manager within a given organization. The problem is this, though: if the purpose is anything other than getting the employee to leave, the company doesn’t understand what formal documentation actually does.

The only thing a formal write-up is correlated to is the receiving employee being gone within the next 12 months. I’ve seen zero evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, to indicate they actually improve job performance in anyone over the age of say, 25. Just the mention of them going around the office deflates morale, let alone receiving one. And it leaves an open wound on the employee-employer relationship that won’t heal.

Realistically, if you’re going to write an employee up you might as well save some time and just fire them. Your legal team won’t allow that of course, hence the need for documentation, but that’s the road you’re heading down. Better embrace it.

A morale-killing, productivity-draining exercise

As a manager, all you need to do is browse forums and articles to see what the real-world effects of a write-up are. Examples range from incredulous bosses asking why their “top” employee quit following formal documentation to people being told that they had better leave immediately subsequent to their own write-up. It’s obvious that the second you print that document, you’ve started a clock on your relationship with that employee, like it or not.

I was attending a breakout session at a meaningless conference once where this subject came up. The speaker asked the room (of managers) how many had written someone up before, including synonyms for the same. Almost all raised their hand. The follow-up question was to ask how many of those same employees remained two years later. All hands went down. Not a one.

Corporations may view “improvement plans” or “written performance actions” as a method to convey the seriousness of a certain part of employees’ jobs or even think they’re a legitimate way to spur on improvement. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. I know of no better way to quickly convert a relatively problem-free employee into a disgruntled, disengaged, actively-looking-at-Indeed-in-the-office nightmare than formal documentation.

Since there’s no company loyalty to employees anymore, the employees tend to return the favor. Your staff is only going to stay for as long as it’s beneficial to their future to remain with their current organization. The second that balance shifts, consider them gone. Nobody has a pension obligation to meet anymore, so a year at a company that doesn’t have a future for me is just a year wasted.

As a result, the second an employee is documented, the balance shifts completely in favor of “get the hell out of here.” Most employees don’t enjoy their jobs already, so it doesn’t take much of a push, to begin with. But formal documentation is a real shove.

In practice, it establishes the following thoughts in the employee, often in order:

1. Someone in management doesn’t like me (even if the immediate supervisor does, someone required this)
2. They don’t like my work, so why do I give it so much effort?
3. **** you for thinking I don’t do my job well
4. I have a permanent stain on my record so long as I remain here, so:
5. My future here is kneecapped, somewhere else it wouldn’t be
6. Time to leave before I get fired

What a useful management tool! Well, if you want to get someone to voluntarily leave rather than deal with messy severance paperwork, it is. If your intention as a manager/employer was anything else, you just shot yourself in the foot.

A lazy solution to an often complex problem

Before I get into my thoughts on why write-ups fail, I should state that I’ve long known that my mind isn’t exactly compatible with the way society functions. As a result, maybe someone else should be making this point, but I’ll let you decide.

I don’t have an ideology really unless you can count efficiency and rationality as one. Those two I value above all other things. This often gets me into trouble, particularly at work.

You see, I respond to any situation by weighing everything in front of me at that moment and deciding what action best balances protecting the company’s interest and the client’s desires in the quickest way possible. Every time. Try as I have to change this instinct, I always revert to it. It’s the reason that when things go really wrong people suddenly want my advice. It’ll be quick, emotionless, rational. It’s also why nobody ever comes to me with a carefully reasoned policy question. I’ll glaze over halfway through.

That’s not oversimplified either. Note that nowhere in my decision-making process does company policy/procedure factor in. Nor do past arguments/grudges or distant future ramifications. You can see where this leads to write-ups. I work harder than most, get better resolutions than most, but often trip myself up on some asinine thing that came about from the company getting too defensive about a lawsuit in 1997 along the way. Yes, I have plenty of flaws.

The employers that I’ve stayed with for a while have often realized — quicker than me, many times — that I’m a great asset somewhere, but maybe not where they brought me on. One employer was forming a new department and went to me to head it:

“There are no rules, it’s brand new. You’ll run it, bring a few people on board on a part-time basis and source the business as you see fit. Work with whatever third parties you want, report to no one but me and the board once a month or so.”

It was a promotion, with a raise, but it was said in a way that was more like:

“We both know the rules and regulations surrounding your current role are going to kill you sooner rather than later and we don’t want to lose your brain. Take this liferaft.”

It was a deft move and one that kept me there and ultimately paid the company huge rewards that I saw very little of in comparison. Ironically, I’ve been promoted and disciplined for the exact same behavior in roughly equal measure.

But they understood a key idea: It’s very rare that an employee is outright bad. They may be misplaced or adjusting poorly, sure. But irredeemable? Rarely. Rather than try to work with the problem, formal documentation prematurely puts a nail in the coffin. It’s lazy.

Same too for companies that see a majority of their employees disregarding, ignoring, or outright mocking a certain procedure and decide the solution is write-ups. Their first thought is that if everyone disagrees with us we have to convey how serious this is. We’ll announce failure to comply will result in formal improvement plans. How about looking at the merits of a rule that’s so universally opposed, instead? Again, it’s lazy.

Then there’s the “just in case” group. They may like the employee they’re documenting, might agree with them even. But they do the documentation “just in case.” They’ll say things like “you never know when we might need to show it down the road” or “better safe than sorry in case my boss comes looking.” This group documents everything. I’d be curious to see their turnover numbers.

Why it matters

Companies are supposedly looking inward in the face of labor shortages and other societal changes that have redefined our workforce in recent years. An increased focus is being paid to attracting and retaining talent, as well as remaining competitive in a labor market that increasingly sees freelancing as the better option.

If they’re serious about their changes, they need to look at their performance evaluation policies, write-up policies, and other seemingly trivial items. These have a huge impact on turnover rates and morale, though often ignored.

I’ve never known a good manager who starts with written documentation. They always start with a conversation. I’ve seen plenty of bad executives who default to written HR actions as part of their usual business strategy, however. It’s that latter group that needs to change if companies are serious about retaining talent. Their policies are the ones chasing the talent out the door.