The Silent Redundancy: How Companies use PIPs and Misconduct to reshape Teams

If you've recently been put on a PIP or suspended for alleged gross misconduct, I want you to think about something.

In some organisations, these things don't happen in isolation. Sometimes they reflect a wider attempt to reduce headcount or reshape the workforce without going through a formal redundancy process.

When someone is put on a PIP after years of strong performance, or when a suspension feels disproportionate to what's being alleged, the natural reaction is to assume it must be about them personally. It's the only part of the situation they can see and it's the only part they're being asked to respond to.

Over the last few years I've spoken to employees from the same organisations who were all being placed on PIPs, suspended, or moved into formal processes within a relatively short period. In those situations, the common factor wasn't individual performance. It was that something had shifted in the business itself.

Sometimes that's financial pressure, sometimes restructuring, or a pending acquisition. Sometimes a change in leadership and a decision to manage performance and exits more aggressively than before. The label matters less than the fact that something broader has changed, and employees are rarely told about it clearly or upfront.

Instead, each person is given an individual explanation for their situation and nd that explanation may well be accurate in isolation, because performance issues do exist, misconduct does need investigating, and employers are entitled to manage both. The difficulty comes when multiple people with previously clean records start going through formal processes at the same time. At that point it becomes harder to explain it as a series of unrelated individual problems.

That's when it's reasonable to ask a simple question: is this really about individual performance and conduct, or is the organisation dealing with something bigger and using formal processes as the mechanism for change?

That doesn't mean assuming bad faith or deciding in advance what's happening. It just means using that awareness to ask harder questions about your own situation. Is the feedback you're receiving consistent with what you were told before this process started? Is the threshold being applied to you the same one that's been applied to others? Does the timeline make sense?

If you're in the middle of a PIP, a suspension, or an investigation, it's worth paying attention to what else is happening around you. Not so you can point to other people, but so you can challenge your own situation with a clearer picture of the context you're operating in. Sometimes your situation is genuinely individual. Sometimes it's part of something bigger, and knowing that helps you ask the right questions and defend yourself properly. Let’s have a chat if you’re going through something at work that doesn’t seem right - book a meeting here.