Create a performance improvement plan

What this achieves

An improvement plan sets out what somebody needs to do differently, by when, and how progress will be checked. Creating one here produces a draft — nobody is told about it until it is activated.

Required role: Administrator or Manager.

Before you start

This documents a process that can end somebody’s employment. Humavera records the plan, its goals, and its outcome; it does not decide whether a plan is warranted, whether your process is fair, or what your obligations are where the person is employed. Take your own advice on all three before you start one.

A low rating creates eligibility, not a plan

A rating scale can mark a level as below acceptable, and the rating scale screen states that such a level triggers improvement-plan eligibility. Eligibility is all it does.

No plan is created automatically, nobody is enrolled automatically, and nothing happens to an employee because of a rating alone. A person still has to decide to start one.

Example: an engineer at HC Corp UK Ltd rated at a below-acceptable level becomes eligible. Whether Olivia Bennett starts a plan is her judgement, taken with her HR partner.

Steps

Go to Performance → PIPs.
Select Create PIP.
Under Employee, search for the person and select them.
Check the Manager shown under Accountability, and add an HR partner (optional).
Under Trigger (optional), link the review rating that prompted the plan.
Enter the Reason, then set the Start date and End date.
Under Improvement goals, select Add goal and give each one a Goal title, a Target date, and a Description.
Review the Checkpoints, adjusting the dates or adding more.
Select Save as draft.

What the form asks for

Option	Description
Employee	The person the plan is for.
Manager	Filled in from the employee’s profile. Where nobody is recorded as their manager, the form says so.
HR partner (optional)	A second named person accountable for the plan.
Trigger (optional)	The review rating that prompted the plan, linked so the connection is on the record.
Reason	Your description of the performance concerns.
Start date and End date	The period the plan runs for. The form shows the resulting duration.
Improvement goals	What the person has to achieve, each with its own target date.
Checkpoints	The dates progress will be reviewed.

Checkpoints are proposed for you

Once the dates are set, three checkpoints are proposed across the period. They are a starting point — change the dates, add more, or select Reset to defaults to go back to the proposal.

Two rules are enforced: a checkpoint must fall inside the plan’s date range, and checkpoints must be in date order. The form names the offending checkpoint rather than refusing without explanation.

Example: a plan for Tom Hargreaves running three months arrives with checkpoints at roughly one month, two months, and the end date. His manager moves the first one earlier because the first few weeks are the ones that matter.

Saving produces a draft, and a draft tells nobody

The only way to save from this form is Save as draft. A draft is yours to work on: the employee is not notified, and nothing about it is official until it is activated.

Use that. Write the goals, put the plan down, and read it again before anybody sees it — the wording of a goal is what the person will be measured against.

Example: “Improve communication” cannot be met or missed. “Circulate written notes within one working day of each client call” can.

What happens next

The draft appears in the improvement plan list at its status, and you can keep editing it. Activating it is a separate, deliberate step that notifies the employee, their manager, and the HR partner, and makes the plan the official record. Cancelling a draft instead is permanent for that draft, though nothing stops you creating a new plan later.