That dude is talking the exact way a lot of execs think. If this is due to one person's screw-up, that person is going to get railroaded out of the company's back door.
I saw this happen before. A newish IT guy accidentally deployed a script to a few hundred machines that took down the whole worldwide intranet for a multi-billion dollar juggernaut for an hour or so. He was supposedly forgiven, but ended up on a "performance improvement plan" where he had a bunch of impossible tasks, and every shortcoming was documented to use against him until he was fired.
I wish things worked the way you think they do, or if not that way, I wish they'd at least just shitcan the dude on the spot (with a few months' severance) and be done with it.
If you ever get put on a PIP for a reason that's obviously to get rid of you as fast as possible, have a quiet word with someone in power and float the idea of a settlement agreement.
You might even get a free laptop out of it..
(This comment is only considering employment in the UK)
In the US it's true companies get indemnity for this, but they also usually have better lawyers than you do, so most will play hardball and you lose and then when a company does a background search on you and see litigiousness... it's better to take your losses and move on.
I don’t know what form it would or even should take but these kinds of “Performance Improvement Plans” where the person being coached is set up for failure needs some kind of alternative that incentivizes employers to either responsibly dismiss the person or otherwise be genuine with “performance improvement”.
These tactics are hard to prove if someone goes to court over it (probably) but are just as hard to recover emotionally from and can stunt a person all the way to their next job or many.
So when you see those impossible job descriptions that no one can possibly meet, that is your cover. It's not fair, but sometimes you just don't fit in and the team has to get rid of the fly in the ointment.
I saw this happen before. A newish IT guy accidentally deployed a script to a few hundred machines that took down the whole worldwide intranet for a multi-billion dollar juggernaut for an hour or so. He was supposedly forgiven, but ended up on a "performance improvement plan" where he had a bunch of impossible tasks, and every shortcoming was documented to use against him until he was fired.
I wish things worked the way you think they do, or if not that way, I wish they'd at least just shitcan the dude on the spot (with a few months' severance) and be done with it.