How to Write a Performance Improvement Plan with Claude
You'll finish with a structured, defensible PIP you can take to a legal or HR review — even if you've never written one before, even if the situation has already escalated, and even if you're not sure what's legally required in your jurisdiction. One prompt, two rounds of refinement, 25 minutes.
A Performance Improvement Plan is a legally significant document. Employment law varies substantially between countries, states, and sectors — what's standard in the US may create liability in the UK, and vice versa. Have the final document reviewed by a qualified HR consultant or employment lawyer before you deliver it to the employee.
A PIP should be a genuine tool for helping an employee improve — not a paper trail built toward dismissal. If the outcome is already decided, a PIP is the wrong document. Use it only when you're prepared to support the improvement process and act on the result in either direction.
TL;DR
- You'll have a complete, structured first draft in under two minutes — built from your actual evidence, not generic templates.
- Claude handles the framing and language; you provide the incidents, targets, and support plan.
- The draft needs a professional review before delivery — Claude gets you 90% of the way there, fast.
- What would take a blank-doc afternoon takes 25 minutes, including your edits and the legal check conversation.
Before you start
- A Claude.ai account — free plan handles one full PIP without issue; Pro if you're working on several cases.
- Documented evidence of the performance gaps: specific incidents with dates, missed targets, written warnings already issued, or notes from previous conversations. If you have a recent performance review, pull that up too.
- A rough sense of what "improved performance" looks like — even just two or three concrete, observable things. You'll sharpen these in Step 2, but you need a starting point before you open Claude.
- The employee's job title, start date, and the review period covered by the PIP. Without these, the draft defaults to phrasing so generic it'll need full rewriting.
- Contact details for a qualified HR consultant or employment lawyer you can send the draft to before delivery. This step isn't optional.
How to do it — step by step
Document the specific gaps before you open Claude
Start by spending an extra minute — before you touch Claude — writing down the exact incidents, missed deliverables, and observable behaviours that triggered this PIP. Include dates and, where possible, the impact: "Missed the 14 March client deadline, causing a two-day delay to the project handover" is usable evidence. "Poor time management" is not. This matters because a PIP built on vague observations doesn't hold up when challenged — either in a difficult conversation with the employee or in a formal dispute. If the incidents are still fresh, document them now. If you're working from memory, pull up whatever written trail exists: emails, calendar entries, previous conversation notes. The HR Workflows hub has lightweight tracking systems that make this much easier for future situations, but for now, use what you have.
Define what success looks like — in concrete terms
Before moving on to the prompt, write two to four improvement targets that meet this test: could you objectively assess whether they were achieved or not at the end of the PIP period? "Improve communication with the team" fails the test. "Send a written project status update to the team every Friday by 5pm" passes it. Vague goals in a PIP create ambiguity that almost always benefits the person being challenged — not the outcome you want if the situation escalates. If you're genuinely unsure what's realistic, open Claude first and ask: "Help me turn this vague goal into two or three measurable targets for a PIP" — then use the output in your main prompt. That extra step takes three minutes and makes the whole document more defensible.
Run the prompt and get a first draft
Now open Claude and paste the prompt below — fill in the green placeholders, add your evidence and targets at the bottom, and hit send. Don't try to perfect the input. A working draft to react to is always faster than trying to write from scratch, and Claude handles the structural heavy lifting — turning your bullet points into professional, neutrally framed language.
Check for tone, fairness, and specificity
At this point, read the draft once through asking: if this employee showed this to an employment lawyer tomorrow, would every claim in it be defensible? Check three things specifically. First, does every performance gap cite an observable behaviour or documented incident — not a personality judgment? Second, are the improvement targets genuinely measurable, or did Claude soften them into vague language? Third, is the support section realistic — things you'll actually provide, not a list written to look generous? If anything reads as punitive or one-sided, push back in the same conversation. "Rewrite the opening paragraph to frame this as a support document, not a warning notice" gets you a materially different result in about ten seconds. The AI for HR Teams hub has more examples of how to phrase these follow-up requests when the first draft isn't quite right.
Send it for professional review before you deliver it
Don't skip this. Send the draft to a qualified HR consultant or employment lawyer before it reaches the employee. This step exists not because Claude produces bad drafts, but because employment law is jurisdiction-specific and a single clause can change the document's legal standing entirely. Many solo HR consultants offer a one-off document review at a flat rate — that fee is cheap compared to an unfair dismissal claim. If you're in the UK, ACAS guidance is also worth checking before delivery.
The prompt
You are helping me draft a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for one of my employees. Context: - Employee name and job title: [e.g. James Wright, Senior Account Manager] - Employment start date: [e.g. March 2021] - PIP period: [e.g. 1 June – 31 August 2025 (90 days)] - Jurisdiction: [e.g. UK / US — California / Other: specify] - Previous formal steps taken: [e.g. verbal warning issued April 2025, written warning issued May 2025 / none yet] Documented performance gaps (with specific incidents and dates): [Paste your evidence here — specific incidents, missed targets, dates, observable behaviours. Do not include personality judgments. Stick to documented, observable facts.] Improvement targets (measurable, time-bound): [List two to four specific targets the employee must meet by the end of the PIP period. Each should be objectively assessable.] Support being provided: [List the support you are committing to provide during the PIP period — e.g. weekly check-ins, access to training, clearer briefing process, a named point of contact.] Consequence if targets are not met: [e.g. Further disciplinary action up to and including dismissal, in line with company policy and applicable law.] Using only the information above, draft a formal Performance Improvement Plan document. The tone should be professional, clear, and constructive — this is a support document, not a warning notice. Frame the performance gaps around observable behaviours and documented incidents, not personality. Frame the targets as achievable expectations, not punishments. Include the following sections: 1. Purpose of this document 2. Summary of performance concerns (with specific references to the documented incidents) 3. Improvement targets and success criteria 4. Support and resources provided 5. Review schedule and check-in dates 6. Consequences of not meeting the targets 7. Employee acknowledgement section (signature lines) Do not invent details not in my input. If a section lacks sufficient information, flag it with [COMPLETE BEFORE DELIVERY] so I know what to fill in. End the document with a clear note that it should be reviewed by a qualified HR or legal professional before being shared with the employee.
What the output looks like
Performance Improvement Plan
Employee: James Wright, Senior Account Manager | PIP Period: 1 June – 31 August 2025
1. Purpose of this document
This Performance Improvement Plan has been prepared to support James Wright in meeting the performance expectations of the Senior Account Manager role. It sets out the specific areas where performance has fallen below the required standard, the targets James is expected to meet during the review period, and the support the company will provide to help him achieve them. This document is intended as a constructive tool, not a punitive one.
2. Summary of performance concerns
Between January and May 2025, three client accounts managed by James experienced missed response deadlines: the Harrow Foods account (14 March — client escalation logged), the Brentfield Media account (2 April — account review delayed by five working days), and the Stanton Group account (29 April — renewal at risk due to delayed proposal submission). In each case, the delay was flagged internally before the client contact, suggesting an awareness of the issue without escalation to management. A verbal warning was issued on 18 April 2025 and a written warning on 9 May 2025.
3. Improvement targets and success criteria
By 31 August 2025, James is expected to: (a) respond to all client communications within one working day, as evidenced by CRM timestamps; (b) submit all renewal proposals at least ten working days before the client deadline, as logged in the project tracker; (c) flag any at-risk accounts to the account director within 48 hours of identifying a risk, documented via the internal escalation log. All three targets will be reviewed at the four-week, eight-week, and final check-ins.
Claude vs Gemini for this workflow
| Dimension | Claude | Gemini |
|---|---|---|
| Neutral, defensible tone on sensitive topics | Better | Good |
| Sticking strictly to your documented evidence | Better | Good |
| Flagging missing information clearly | Better | Good |
| Integration with Google Docs for sharing | Good | Better |
| Speed on free plan | Good | Better |
| Overall recommendation for PIP drafting | Recommended | Solid alternative |
How to adapt this workflow
If you've never written a PIP before
Don't worry if the terminology is unfamiliar — add this line to the prompt before sending: "Assume I have no formal HR background. Use plain language throughout and briefly explain the purpose of each section." That instruction shifts Claude's output from formal HR document language toward something you'll actually understand and be able to defend in a conversation. Before you draft anything, it's also worth spending ten minutes in the AI for HR Teams hub — it has plain-English explanations of what a PIP is legally supposed to do and what it isn't.
If the situation has already escalated
Skip the preamble and go straight to the prompt — but add a line at the top: "Previous formal steps already taken: [list them]." Claude will adjust the language of the document accordingly, and the output will reference prior warnings rather than implying this is a first step. At this point the professional review in Step 5 becomes especially important — if disciplinary action is already in progress, the PIP needs to sit correctly within that process, and the sequencing varies by jurisdiction.
For independent HR consultants working across multiple clients
Save a client-specific version of the prompt in your notes tool with their standard review period, any sector-specific language they use, and their escalation policy already filled in. That drops per-case setup from five minutes to under one. The HR Prompt Builder is designed for exactly this — you configure it once per scenario type and reuse it without starting from scratch each time.
If you're not sure what targets are realistic
This is where Claude earns its place before you even run the main prompt. Open a separate conversation and paste: "I'm writing a PIP for a [job title] whose main performance issue is [describe it]. Help me turn that into three or four specific, measurable targets I could reasonably assess in 90 days." Use the output as input for your main prompt. Targets generated this way tend to be more operationally grounded than anything built from a generic template — and a target Claude helped you frame is still a target you chose and are accountable for.