This reads like it came from a dystopian MegaCorp sci-fi story. Is this for real?
PIPs aren't just used at Amazon to tie people down, it's also used as pre-firing. To my knowledge almost no one gets off a PIP after being put on one, and management will go out of their way to have you "fail" to accomplish to the terms of the Performance Improvement Plan, and thereby give legal cover for your firing.
I personally know someone who was the victim of this exact mechanism - one of the smartest people I've ever worked with and who has been well-liked everywhere else and even well-liked within the company.
PIPs are a disgusting, spineless tool used by disgusting, spineless people.
Side note but somewhat related: I've worked at a lot of companies, Amazon is the only one where I can't help but resist writing a snippy note when their recruiters come knocking. It would take a supernatural amount of force for me to consider working there ever again.
Sounds like HR to me.
He was a nice guy, but did not flourish, and his peers did not help at all. I remember one analyst berating the new guy because he asked the same questions over again, when this particular analyst asked me the same crap all the time. Very annoying and disingenuous. I complained to my lead, which was a mistake. I, a developer was tasked with helping the new business analyst, when his role was totally different than mine.
To the point; he was put on PIP and eventually let go, and I had a couple of bad reviews due my involvement. I switched groups soon after, then left the company. I had worked with my lead and manager for 5 years before that, I thought we all got along great. Little did I know how tenuous my good standing was, and how I endangered myself for standing up for someone else.
PIPs are often required by HR to get rid of even terrible employees. They suck, but it's a cover-your-ass tool so that the company has explicit proof the manager communicated problems with the person and tried to get them to change their behavior.
In most companies it's actually pretty difficult to fire someone unless they do something obviously illegal.
A Performance Improvement Plan is not the same thing as documenting an employee's misdeeds. Yes, you need to document to protect yourself legally, but what you don't need to do is put them on a rigged "plan" that is intentionally engineered to fail.
Collecting evidence to fire an employee is one thing - a PIP veers into manufacturing evidence to fire an employee.
They say that money doesn't change people, it just reveals who they are. More generally, circumstances will often allow someone to express who they really are.