Employees may or may not be cognizant that their employer is pressuring them to resign. They often will not recognize the full brunt of the employer’s intention until their employer places them on a “Performance Improvement Plan, commonly referred to as a “PIP”. If the employer presents the PIP in good faith, a PIP can be a formal document with the intention of helping employees improve their performance at work. It outlines an employee's performance issues and sets goals to be achieved. It is presented as a means to help employees who aren't meeting job goals or expectations to perform better. However, it usually contains the ominous warning that if they do not meet the goals by a certain date, they either risk or definitely will be terminated. Negative Employee Performance Evaluations may be given as an excuse to not renew the employee’s contract. See Bergen County Employment Attorney, My Employment Contract Was Not Renewed, Is this Illegal Discrimination?
If you were place on a PIP or believe you are experiencing discrimination because you are a member of a protected class, such as race, age, disability, sex, etc., you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. I am an experienced and successful employment discrimination attorney who can advise you as to your options and the best course of action for you. Don’t sit on your rights! If you are being discriminated against, you may call this office today for a free consultation.
TOO OFTEN A PIP IS PRESENTED TO MASK ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION.
Too often a PIP is presented to the employee to mask illegal discrimination and to establish an alleged bone fide business defense i.e., the employer’s planning for a preemptive strike should the employer subsequently have to defend on the terminated employee’s discrimination lawsuit. See Employment/Civil Rights Law. Unfortunately, these PIPs may contain inherent biases and judge the employee’s performance more harshly than other employees performing the same job, by demanding unrealistic goals and bench marks and time frames that are impossible to achieve, while other employees are not held to the same standards, See NJ Sex Discrimination Attorney, I’m a Female Executive Unfairly Evaluated.
Other employee evaluations may not contain a final warning or may not be called a “Performance Improvement Plan”, however these evaluations can and often do directly correlate to promotions, demotions and terminations. To read in more detail on proper and improper evaluations, see Employee Performance Evaluations.
Employers typically give other earlier performance evaluations, based on the date that the employee commenced his or her employment, or incrementally, periodically or yearly on specified dates. While all evaluations are related to the specific job title and job duties, and are different and depend on the specific employer, most performance evaluations are based on various subjective and objective criteria.
This means that there will be some aspects of the performance evaluations that will be based on concrete measurements, such as the number of sales an employee has closed, as well as some aspects that are a matter of opinion, such as the employee’s demeanor. But, in all cases, the person performing the evaluation should be competent to conduct this type of review.
Rapidly Evolving Nascent AI Technology and Increasing Use of AI Algorithms by Employers
With the current increasing use of AI algorithms by corporate management that dictates policy, certain protected classes of workers, such as those who are older or disabled, may be targeted for termination based on biased misconceptions of the protected worker’s ability to perform. The performance evaluations should always be clear as to the consequences of a positive or negative evaluation. If it is not clear, the employee should ask for clarification.
With the rapidly evolving AI technology used by employers, there is a risk of adverse consequences for employees with certain legally protected characteristics, such as disability and age, according to a study published by the Department of Labor and an independent research group.
AI used to evaluate Employee Performance Evaluations utilized for selecting employees for promotions or demotions could be subject to bias in the selection process if protected characteristics are a functionality of AI algorithms and machine learning applications, whether or not apparent to the reader. See NJ Employment Discrimination Attorney, Tech Development Workers and AI Discrimination.
Unscrupulous employers too frequently have a business model utilizing PIPs to pressure an employee into resigning. If the employer is concerned about an employee’s potential subsequent lawsuit due to age, race, or disability discrimination etc., it establishes a paper trail that the employee was warned that the quality of their work was deficient in some manner; and the employer clearly directed the employee on how to improve to meet the employer’s legitimate business expectations, but failed to do so, so the termination was warranted.
Pregnant workers are sometimes given biased evaluations. See NJ Pregnancy Discrimination Attorney, Pregnant Employees Receive Poor Employee Performance Evaluations.
Don’t Sit on Your Rights
I have represented public and private employees who were discriminated against, harassed, cheated out of legal wages, pushed out of their jobs for illegal reasons and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for lost wages, both for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. If you think you are being pushed out of your job for illegal reasons or cheated of wages, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. I accept discrimination and whistleblower cases from all over New Jersey and have locations in Southern, Central and Northern NJ to meet with clients.
If You Quit Your Job, You May Lose Right to Prevail in a Lawsuit
In many instances of discrimination, if you quit your job, you may lose right to prevail in a lawsuit unless you first take certain legally required measures to preserve your job while you are still employed. If you are thinking of handing in a resignation letter, or think you will be fired (or have already been terminated), you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation to discuss your options.
Hope A. Lang, Attorney at Law represents workers throughout the entire state, including Hackensack, Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, Orange, East Orange, Trenton, Paterson, Montclair, Elizabeth, North Brunswick, Cherry Hill, Vineland, Union, Plainfield, Hamilton Township, Lakewood, Edison, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Franklin, Lakewood, and every NJ County, including Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Essex, Monmouth, Somerset, Ocean, Union, Camden, Passaic, Morris, Gloucester, Atlantic, Burlington, Camden Counties.