This has never made sense to me. In the US, you can fire someone because you don't like that they wore a green shirt! As long as it's not for one of those specific, enumerated forbidden reasons, companies have total freedom to hire and fire.
I was fired once, and there were no PIPs, no documentation, no warning, no nothing. Just "We aren't doing this work anymore and don't need you" and that was that.
> In the US, you can fire someone because you don't like that they wore a green shirt!
And if that employee can show that other people were allowed to wear green shirts without being fired, they can use that to support an illegal discrimination claim against the company.
The reason it takes effort and documentation to fire people is because companies want to have a uniform set of rules that are applied equally to all employees. They also want documentation to support the firing. Having a consistent process, applied equally and with supporting documentation discourages people from even trying to bring frivolous lawsuits.
Having additional process is also a check on managers. Some managers try to fire anyone they disagree with, dislike, or even to do things like open headcount so they can fill it with a nepotism hire. Putting process in place and requiring documentation discourages managers from firing people frivolously and adds another level of checks and balances to discourage gaming the system.
> And if that employee can show that other people were allowed to wear green shirts without being fired, they can use that to support an illegal discrimination claim against the company.
> If you get fired, and didn't see it coming, that's a failure in management. You should have _plenty_ of explicit signs of where things are heading, starting in 1:1 and culminating in a PIP.
If you happen to wear a green shirt on St. Patrick's Day, then maybe you can sue and say that you were fired because your boss is bigoted against Irish Americans. No one ever comes right out and says that they're firing someone for an illegal reason, so the PIP and the rest of that song and dance is to try to prove that it was above board for a potential lawsuit, which companies seek to avoid at all costs.
I was fired once, and there were no PIPs, no documentation, no warning, no nothing. Just "We aren't doing this work anymore and don't need you" and that was that.