Your workplace runs on two sets of rules.
The ones written in the handbook, and the ones only HR knows. I spent 14 years on the side that knows the second set. This is me handing it to you.
Who I am
I'm Steven. Fourteen years in HR, from administrator to HRBP to Director, across a 700-person aerospace plant, a 1,200-person union manufacturing plant, and a joint venture restructuring in tech.
I wrote the PIPs. I ran the performance reviews. I sat in the rooms where hiring and termination decisions actually got made. When somebody landed on a plan, I was often the person who helped build it, and I watched what separated the people who came out the other side from the people who did not.
SpringsQuest is me. No team, no content mill, no agency. If you read a guide here, I wrote it. If you email, I answer.
Why I built it
Almost everything written about a PIP is written for the employer: how to manage performance, how to document a termination, how to make a decision defensible. The person actually on the plan gets almost nothing, and nothing at all from someone who has sat on the other side of that table.
I watched people lose jobs that were genuinely winnable. Not because they could not do the work, but because nobody ever told them how the process was going to be run.
Nobody told them what the record was supposed to look like, or what their options really were. That is a bad reason to lose your career, and it is the reason this exists.
What I can't do, and what I won't
You should know exactly where the lines are before you trust anyone with a situation like this.
No legal advice
I am not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice. If your situation needs a licensed employment attorney, I will say so plainly, and you should go get one.
No false promises
I can't promise you keep your job. Nobody honest can. What I can do is make sure you understand exactly what your PIP says, what your record needs to show, and what your real options are.
No contact with your employer
I never contact your employer. Not for any reason. I am not affiliated with any company you work for, and what you tell me stays between us.
Where to start
If you just got put on a plan, start with the free checklist. It walks your first 14 days, one day at a time, beginning with the one instruction most people get wrong: read the whole thing before you react to it.
Or just ask me something: email me directly.
Springs Quest Partners, LLC