Thanks tobyjugg2

Thanks a lot for all your help. I had raised my concerns with HR about the whole process and unilaterally extending the informal review period beyond initial 1 month period without informing me. Now they seemed to have backed down and there will be a restart of the informal process on 3rd September when I am back to work. There will be again one month review period and they will judge me at the end of that period. Any suggestions on how to get through this? Seems keeping a low profile and doing everything right is also not good enough. When I told my head of department last week that for one and half months I kept to myself. He said that's the problem. You like to work in isolation. Software development is not exactly like Production line and doing everything perfect is almost impossible. I heard no one comes out of PIP process. I am not in a state to change the job at the moment. At this time can I apply for trade union or unemployment insurance?

Thanks Emmzzi.

Hi. My head of department had agreed for a period of observation of 1 month. I was not given any plan of improvement or any written communication of areas of concerns. Now after one and half months later all of sudden he scheduled a meeting on Friday (last day before I go on long parental break) a meeting and told that my performance hasn't improved and that he is starting a formal performance improvement process. During the meeting when I asked him specifics about why he thinks my performance was not good enough, he had no answer. He said he will send an email later in the day. Meeting is scheduled on 10th Sept. "Following on from today’s meeting, areas that I have identified as cause for concern are outlined below. These are areas that we have covered before during informal meetings. This is not an exhaustive list; it is a list of the main areas & approaches that have led to the start of a formal process. This summary is provided as a gesture of goodwill ahead of a formal meeting on your return to work, during which we will talk through the full list of concerns and examples. As such, I am not prepared to embark upon discussion via email or other channels ahead of that meeting. Attitude & approach to coding Refactoring code without building in appropriate levels of unit testing and without sufficient design and planning ahead of starting work Working in isolation without communication or QA of design Commitment to completing work by a given deadline – for example, by the end of sprint, or by the end of the day. Attitude & approach to teamwork Preferring to work in isolation – insufficient technical discussion with colleagues before taking on tasks & reluctant to work in pairs Submission of code to QA without sufficient testing – and dismissal of QA concerns about errors during test Interaction in meetings – constructive criticism is welcome, but have concerns around negative attitude Interaction with development team – communication of issues/problems" Last one and half month was quite friction less and I was trying to keep a low profile and do lot of work. All of above issues are false. I am not sure how to get out of this mess. From today I am going on a 5.5 weeks of unpaid parental leave plus annual leave. He didn't like me taking such break from work. Can someone please suggest me good trade union for IT professionals.

Hi all, I am an IT developer and my work is to write software for my employer's website. I am having a bit of trouble at work. I recently finished 2 years with my current employer. My head of department has started first phase of a capability process. It means he discusses with me issues and will observe my performance for one month. He has put two points 1. My interaction with the team and 2. Do it right first time. I recently worked on a project along with another developer. I took lot of initiatives on this project and did 80% of work. So it was kind of assumed that I am responsible for this project and I was being called in all the meetings. There were very few defects during Testing phase. But unfortunately there were some issues in the project because of faults of System and Testing people and couple of defects from me which were not caught by Testing. I had few arguments with my head of department during the project duration and I believe he is just witch hunting. Meeting happened on Monday and I was told that Head will set objectives for me which I sign off. But I haven't being given objectives yet. Next process in capability process is first written warning if there is not progress and then final written warning. Please advise.