By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT
Search for performance improvement plan examples and you get ten near-identical documents: the sales rep who missed quota, the employee who is late, the manager whose team is unhappy. Fill in the blanks, sign, done. None of them tell you which of those plans had any chance of working.
I have run the conversation behind that document as one of Canon's youngest CEOs, and I now advise business owners through it. The examples below are sorted the way I sort them in practice: the ones that helped someone keep a job, and the ones that were exit paperwork from the first sentence.
Two (the manager whose team kept leaving and the five-year no-show) are situations I advised on, told with roles only. The other three are composites of the shape I see most often, not case studies. Both kinds can be written correctly; only one kind is honest.
Quick answer: Good performance improvement plan examples share four features: a gap stated with dated facts, three or fewer objectives that can be counted on the end date, a specific support commitment from the manager, and a root cause that is a skill or knowledge gap rather than a motivation or fit problem. Plans built on "attitude", seven objectives, or a gap the manager never raised before are usually documentation for an exit.
The tell that sorts every PIP example into two piles
A performance improvement plan example is only worth copying if the gap it describes is one the employee can close with skill, information or structure inside the plan's window. Everything else is a decision the manager has already made, written in the future tense.
Before I look at any plan, I ask the manager to separate three hypotheses about why the person is behind: a knowledge gap (they do not know how), a fear-of-mistakes gap (they know how and freeze), or an expectations gap (nobody ever set the bar in words). Then one test: ask the employee to repeat the instruction back. If they cannot, the manager's communication was the problem and a PIP would punish the wrong person.
The second sort comes from a filter I borrow from EOS: does the person get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it, and do they fit the culture. A no on skill or knowledge is coachable. A no on wanting the job, or on fit, is not, and I tell owners the same thing every time: fire them, do not PIP them. Dragging a person who does not want the job through 60 days of check-ins is not kindness.
Example 1: the sales rep behind on sales quota (helped)
The shape: a rep eight months in, at 55 percent of quota for two quarters, in a team where the norm is 90 to 110 percent. Root cause: a knowledge gap. The rep could open but could not run a second meeting, and had never been shown how.
- Area of improvement: "In Q2 and Q3 you closed 11 of 20 target deals. Nine stalled after the first meeting. That is [amount] short of plan and it means I am covering your pipeline in the forecast."
- Objectives by day 30: twelve second meetings booked from the open pipeline; a written next step logged after every first call; two closed deals from the existing pipeline.
- Support: the manager sat in on the first four second meetings and debriefed each within a day; one hour a week with the top rep on running a discovery call; a call recording reviewed together every Friday.
- Outcome clause: objectives met, plan closes; not met, the role ends on day 30.
Why this shape works: every objective is a count, the gap is something the manager can teach, and the manager's own time is on the page. Movement on two of three objectives at day 30 is the one situation where I extend to 60, in writing.
Example 2: the account manager who has "checked out" (exit paperwork)
The shape: a tenured account manager, four years in, renewals slipping, clients emailing the owner directly, and the phrase that appears in the plan itself: "demonstrates a lack of engagement and ownership".
Read that line again. It is a verdict, not a behavior. There is no date, no meeting, no email a stranger could check. The plan had seven areas of improvement, objectives like "show initiative" and "improve attitude", and a support section that said "regular check-ins as needed".
When an owner shows me a plan like this and says he is on the fence, I ask the same thing every time: are you? Every single time a CEO tells me "I think maybe, I'm on the fence," the answer is no, you are not. The decision was made a quarter ago and the plan is the paperwork. The honest version of that is a short, firm, warm termination conversation with the documentation already in the file, not a 60-day plan the employee will read that night and correctly translate.
Underperformers know when they are not performing. Writing "lack of engagement" into a document informs them of nothing. It informs a future lawyer that the company was not sure either.
Example 3: the manager whose team keeps leaving (helped)
The shape: a first-time manager of six, two resignations in a quarter with exit interviews naming him, and an owner who wanted to fire him.
This is the example I use most because of what happened. I told the owner what I tell everyone in that spot: before you fire a struggling manager, actually manage him. Go hard on it, have the direct conversation, set the bar in words, then decide.
A plan for that situation looks like this:
- Area of improvement: "Between [date] and [date], two of your six reports resigned and both named the same thing in their exit interview: they did not know what they owned or whether they were doing well. I have heard the same from a third person. That is the whole team's retention, and it is on you and on me for not saying it sooner."
- Objectives by day 30: a fifteen-minute one-on-one with each report every week, four weeks running, logged; a written owner for every open project on the team board; one piece of direct feedback per report per week, recorded in one line.
- Support: the owner ran the first week of one-on-ones with him in the room, then reviewed his notes every Friday for four weeks.
Within a quarter the fire-him conversation had turned into an expand-his-role conversation. Leading people who want to be led looks exactly like that. The gap was an expectations gap, nobody had ever told him what managing meant here, and expectations gaps are the most fixable kind there is.
Example 4: quality of work, the analyst whose numbers keep being wrong (helped, with a catch)
The shape: an analyst whose reports needed correction three times in a month, one of which reached a client. Root cause in this composite: partly knowledge (a process nobody had walked her through) and partly fear. She stopped asking because the last two times the answer came with a sigh.
The plan for quality of work:
- Area of improvement: "Three reports in [month] contained errors that others caught, one after it reached the client. Each rework costs the reviewer about two hours and the client one delivered on [date] questioned our numbers in writing."
- Objectives: every report passes a written self-check list before submission, four weeks running; zero errors found by a reviewer that the self-check would have caught; anything that blocks a report is flagged within 24 hours in writing.
- Support: the manager wrote the self-check list with her in week 1, reviewed the first three reports live, and, this is the catch, agreed in the plan to answer any process question the same day with no commentary.
The catch is the point. Half of this gap was created by the manager's sighs. A plan that lists only the employee's errors and not the manager's part is incomplete, and employees can tell.
Example 5: attendance and behavior, the five-year no-show (exit paperwork, and should have been a year ago)
The shape: an employee kept for five years despite chronic no-shows and repeated missed handoffs, finally put on a plan after a new manager arrived.
I sort people on two axes, competent or not and aware or not. Unaware but competent can be trained with direct feedback. Incompetent and unaware is toxic to the team regardless of tenure, and in this case the whole team had watched management tolerate it for five years.
The PIP was correctly written: three areas, dated absences, a timeline, a clear outcome clause. It was still exit paperwork, because the decision was five years old and everyone on the team knew it.
The lesson is not that the plan was wrong. A PIP written after five years of silence is not a performance tool, it is an apology to the rest of the team. Bottom performers on any team of five or more get coached for a bounded period and then removed if nothing changes. A players may thank you for it.
How to read a PIP example before you copy it
| Feature | In a plan that helped | In exit paperwork |
|---|---|---|
| The gap | Dated facts a stranger could verify | Verdicts: "attitude", "engagement", "ownership" |
| Number of areas | Two or three | Five or more |
| Objectives | Counts and deadlines inside 30 days | "Show initiative", "improve communication" |
| Root cause | Knowledge, fear, or expectations never set | Does not want the job, or does not fit |
| Manager's support | Specific, dated, and costs the manager time | "Regular check-ins as needed" |
| When the gap was first raised | Weeks or months before the plan, in a one-on-one | In the plan itself |
| The outcome clause | Plain: role ends on day 30 if not met | "Further action may be taken" |
| How the employee reads it | As a real chance with a real clock | As a countdown |
If you are writing one, the step-by-step on how to write a performance improvement plan walks the left column. For the fields as a document, the performance improvement plan template with a filled sample is on the page as copyable text.
The most common areas of improvement in PIP examples, and what they share
Across the examples above and the ones the HR sites publish, the areas of improvement repeat: missed targets, quality of work, communication and responsiveness, attendance, and behavior toward colleagues. The first three are usually coachable. A performance improvement plan for behavior or attendance works only when the person is unaware, and only once.
The area that never gets written down is the manager's own. The gap in example 3 was an expectations gap, and in example 4 it was half the manager's. The highest-return move in a company is not protecting the A players or removing the C players. It is developing a B player into a strong B-plus, and most PIP examples for managers and individual contributors alike are written about B players by managers who have already decided to treat them as C players.
Lead them to success, not to failure. That sentence is about the manager's internal narration while the plan runs, and it produces visibly different behavior with the same person.
Performance improvement plan examples FAQ
What does a good performance improvement plan example look like?
A good performance improvement plan example states the gap with dated, checkable facts, limits itself to two or three areas, sets objectives that can be counted on the end date, names the specific support the manager commits to with dates, and states the outcome plainly. The root cause is a skill, knowledge, or expectations gap. Plans with five or more areas or objectives phrased as attitudes rarely change behavior.
What is a performance improvement plan example for a sales rep?
A sales rep performance improvement plan example states the shortfall in numbers (for example, 11 of 20 target deals closed over two quarters) and the point in the process where deals stall. Objectives are counts inside 30 days: second meetings booked, next steps logged after every call, deals closed from the existing pipeline. Support typically includes the manager sitting in on calls, paired coaching with a top performer, and weekly call reviews.
What does a performance improvement plan for a manager look like?
A performance improvement plan for a manager usually addresses team outcomes: resignations, exit-interview themes, missed team deadlines or unclear ownership. Objectives are observable management behaviors on a schedule, such as a logged weekly one-on-one with every report, a named owner for each project, and one recorded piece of feedback per report per week. Support often means the manager's own manager attending the first one-on-ones and reviewing notes weekly.
What are examples of measurable PIP goals for quality of work?
Measurable goals in performance improvement plan examples for quality of work count errors and rework: every deliverable passes a written self-check before submission, zero reviewer-caught errors of a defined type over four weeks, and blockers flagged in writing within 24 hours. The plan should also name the process training or checklist the manager will provide, because quality gaps are often knowledge gaps or a fear of asking.
How can you tell if a PIP is really exit paperwork?
Common signs that a PIP is documentation for an exit rather than a plan to improve: the gap is described as an attitude rather than dated behavior, there are five or more areas of improvement, the objectives cannot be counted, the support section is vague, the concern was never raised before the plan, and the outcome clause is unclear. A plan with those features is usually written after the decision has been made.
What are examples of the support a manager commits to in a PIP?
Support in a performance improvement plan is specific and dated: a fixed weekly 20-minute check-in, the manager sitting in on the first calls or reviewing the first deliverables live, a named training session with a date, paired time with a strong peer, and a named person the employee can go to with process problems. "Regular check-ins as needed" is not support. A commitment the manager's calendar can verify is.
Which pile is yours
Every one of these performance improvement plan examples was a correctly formatted document. Format is not the variable. The variable is whether the manager had decided before writing, and whether the gap was one the employee could close with help inside a month.
If you have a plan in draft, run it down the right-hand column of the table. Two or more matches and you owe the person a shorter, more honest conversation than the one you are about to have. The guide to what a performance improvement plan is and when it is real covers that decision in full; if the person is a leader, the ADAPT framework for letting a leader go is the executive-team version.
Find out which manager wrote the plan
Most exit-paperwork performance improvement plan examples were written by managers who avoided the feedback for months and then over-documented in a week. Avoidance is not a character flaw; it is a type. The free leadership assessment takes about ten minutes, scores you across the four leadership types I work with (Visionary, Coach, Strategist, Executor) and names your blind spots, and one of those four types carries avoiding necessary performance conversations as its documented weak point. Find out whether it is yours before the next plan, not after.
