Dear Priya,
Do you have Policy on Performance Appraisal? If not, first you need to make that policy and if yes, you need to include the clause on PIP.
In the policy you need to include the definition of PIP, its duration, what manager or HOD is supposed to do in case of his/her subordinates who are under PIP, what happens to those who improve the performance and come out of PIP and what happens if the performance is not approved?
As far as issue of letter letter to the employees who need to placed under PIP is concerned, I have two recommendations in this aspect. First one is about placing draft of the policy letter as appendix of the policy. My second recommendation is not to devise this kind of letter at all. In case if the person is needed to be placed under PIP, then you need to make this provision in the Performance Appraisal (PA) form. If the marks scored by the employee are below certain level, then you need to take undertaking from the employee right at the stage of PA review itself. This undertaking should be part of the PA form.
Issue of form is fine, but then it would increase unnecessary clerical work of the HR department. Therefore, while devising policies, HR should strive to keep correspondence as minimum as possible.
Quantification of the Performance: - As written earlier, defining the PIP is important. There are posts in this forum wherein employees have written stories on how they have been victimised through PIP. There are cases of women employees who were placed under PIP sooner they declared their pregnancy! Therefore, issue of letter apart, the larger issue is how to avoid misuse of PIP by the Managers or by some other senior authorities. [i]To avoid this misuse, quantification of performance and further their accurate measure is absolutely important. There is no scope for subjectiveness in the performance appraisal.[i]
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar