Description

A performance problem that goes unaddressed is a performance problem that compounds — for the employee, for the team, for the manager, and for the organization. Yet too many US managers either avoid the difficult conversation entirely or rush into a Performance Improvement Plan that is poorly documented, legally fragile, and emotionally hostile. The result is predictable: turnover that did not have to happen, terminations that turn into wrongful-termination claims, severance payouts that could have been avoided, and high performers who quietly disengage because they watch struggling colleagues go unaddressed for months on end. Performance management is one of the highest-leverage activities in any organization, and one of the most consistently mishandled.

This live training gives managers, HR business partners, team leads, and small business owners a complete, ready-to-use framework for handling underperformance the right way. It combines the coaching skills that fix problems before they escalate into formal issues, with the documentation discipline that protects everyone involved when a Performance Improvement Plan becomes necessary. You will learn the conversation flow that opens — not closes — the door to improvement, the documentation language that holds up under a US employment-law challenge, and the manager mindset that turns a difficult moment into a genuine development opportunity for both parties. The framework is grounded in twenty years of practitioner experience and refined through hundreds of real-world performance interventions across industries and company sizes.

Built specifically for US workplaces and refreshed for the 2026 employment law environment, this session walks step by step through the realistic decisions managers face every day. When should you coach informally, and when should you formalize? How do you write a PIP that is fair, specific, and defensible without being punitive? How do you involve HR without escalating prematurely, and how do you escalate appropriately when the situation calls for it? How do you respond when the employee pushes back, requests accommodations, or files a complaint? And how do you handle the small percentage of cases where separation becomes the right outcome — lawfully, humanely, and with everyone’s dignity intact?

This is not a theoretical session or an HR policy lecture. Every module is built around the actual choices that working managers make under time pressure, with imperfect information, and with real human beings on the other side of the table. You will leave with conversation scripts, documentation templates, decision trees, sample PIP language, and a clear sense of exactly what to do — and what to avoid — at every stage of the journey from first concern to final outcome. The investment of two hours will pay for itself the very first time you handle a performance issue without sleepless nights, without legal exposure, and without losing a valuable team member who simply needed better guidance.

Key Areas Covered

• Diagnosing underperformance: distinguishing skill gaps, motivation issues, personal-life impacts, role mismatch, and culture fit before you act, so that the response you choose actually addresses the underlying problem rather than treating a symptom.
• The coaching-first framework: feedback conversations that produce behavior change without triggering defensiveness or shutting the employee down, including specific phrasings that consistently open up productive dialogue.
• The escalation decision: when and how to move from informal coaching to a formal Performance Improvement Plan, when to bring in HR, and the warning signs that say the time for informal coaching has passed.
• Writing a defensible PIP: building goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, time-bound, and legally sound under current US employment law, with sample language and structural templates you can adapt to any role.
• Documentation discipline: contemporaneous notes, performance journals, email follow-ups, and the records that protect you in every direction — with the employee, with HR, with leadership, and with outside counsel if the situation ever escalates that far.
• Protected-class and accommodation considerations: navigating the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, Title VII, and the post-2026-EEOC-rescission workplace landscape with confidence and clarity.
• Managing the PIP timeline: check-ins, mid-point reviews, course corrections, and the final decision — including how to recognize genuine improvement versus the temporary lift that fades after the PIP closes.
• Lawful and dignified separation: termination as a true last resort, handled in a way that minimizes legal exposure, preserves the dignity of everyone involved, and protects the morale of the team that remains.
• Common manager mistakes: the avoidable errors that turn ordinary performance issues into expensive lawsuits, including the documentation traps, conversational missteps, and timing errors that derail otherwise reasonable performance interventions.

Webinar Agenda

• The cost of inaction. Why ignored performance problems quietly damage teams, careers, and companies — and why early action is the kinder choice for everyone.
• Diagnose before you act. A practical framework for identifying what is really driving the underperformance — before you choose a response.
• Coaching conversations that work. Conversation scripts, framing techniques, and emotional intelligence skills that produce real behavior change.
• The PIP decision. When to formalize, when to wait, when to escalate to HR, and the warning signs that say “act now.”
• Writing a defensible PIP. The exact components of a strong PIP, the language to use, the language to avoid, and the legal traps to sidestep in 2026.
• Managing the PIP period. Check-ins, mid-point reviews, documentation cadence, and how to make the final decision with confidence.
• ADA, FMLA, and 2026 US employment-law context. The current legal environment for performance management, including the implications of the January 2026 EEOC harassment guidance rescission for documentation practices.

Why You Should Attend

US managers consistently report performance management as the single most stressful and least-trained-for part of their role. Most managers are promoted into people leadership and then expected to figure out underperformance on their own — often by trial, error, and the occasional lawsuit. The most expensive lessons in management are the ones learned in front of an employment attorney. This webinar is designed to close that gap in a single focused session, before the next difficult situation lands on your desk.

The 2026 employment law environment makes this training more important than ever. Following the EEOC’s January 2026 rescission of the 2024 Workplace Harassment Enforcement Guidance, US employers are now operating with less federal interpretive guidance and more variability across state and local laws. That makes high-quality documentation, consistent process, and defensible decision-making more critical than at any point in the last decade. Specifically, you will benefit in the following ways:

• Reduce voluntary turnover among your high performers, who lose patience quickly when struggling colleagues are not addressed and who often leave first when team standards quietly slip
• Cut legal exposure: poorly documented terminations remain among the most common and most expensive sources of US employment claims, often costing six-figure settlements that strong documentation would have prevented
• Build coaching skills that benefit every employee on your team, not only the ones who are currently struggling — because the techniques that turn around an underperformer also accelerate the development of your stars
• Reclaim the mental energy you currently spend worrying about difficult conversations that never quite happen, and the second-guessing that follows the ones that do
• Walk into your next performance conversation with a clear, tested framework instead of improvising under pressure
• Become the kind of manager people actually want to work for, and that high performers actively seek out when choosing between teams
• Protect yourself personally: managers who handle performance issues well advance faster, attract better talent, and rarely find themselves on the wrong side of an HR investigation

The cost of avoiding a performance issue is almost always higher than the cost of addressing it well — in money, in team morale, in legal risk, and in your own peace of mind. Two hours of focused training will save you weeks of stress and, very possibly, a significant legal liability. More than that, it will fundamentally change the way you experience the people-management part of your job from a source of anxiety into a source of professional satisfaction.

Who Should Attend

• People managers at all levels, from new front-line supervisors to senior directors and vice presidents
• HR business partners, HR generalists, and HR managers
• Employee relations specialists and workplace investigators
• Department heads, plant managers, and operations leaders
• Small business owners, founders, and managing partners
• Learning and development professionals designing manager training programs
• Talent management and people operations leaders
• In-house counsel and compliance professionals supporting HR teams
• Healthcare administrators, clinical managers, and practice managers
• Any professional who is responsible for the performance, development, or separation of even one direct report