Employee development is a powerhouse for talent retention, but here’s the twist: the most overlooked gem in this process is helping initially strong employees reclaim their potential if they start to underperform.
Companies that provide improvement plans for such employees not only retain but also cultivate the strongest talent pool.
Failure is enriching. It’s also important to accept that you’ll make mistakes—it’s how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life’s negative moments. — Alain Ducasse Share on X
Employee improvement plan templates play a pivotal role in fostering a culture of continuous development within organizations.
By embedding these templates into company culture from day one, organizations can empower employees to overcome challenges, learn from setbacks, and ultimately thrive in their roles.
What you want to have are people who have overcome failure and have found success on the other side. If they do that within your organization, then you will be all the stronger and better for it.
Scroll down now to discover our top-rated employee improvement plan templates and initiate the journey toward cultivating a high-performing, growth-driven team culture.
How We Chose the Best Employee Improvement Plan Templates
Why trust us? The SnackNation team, for more than a decade, has been testing and reviewing thousands of templates and selecting only the best. We’ve hand-picked the employee improvement plan templates included in this article using the following criteria:
- Can be shared with team
- User-friendly interface
- Visually Appealing
- Customizable
- Great for collaboration
- Save Time
- Value added
Pro-Tip: Use “Command + D” to bookmark this list – we update it often with the latest and most useful employee improvement plan templates!
Best Employee Improvement Plan Templates
12. Improving Productivity Strategic Plan by ClickUp
🏅Best For: Business executives and managers
When the goal is to improve employee performance, streamline processes, or work with better time management, this template is the resource for the documentation side of work. Its custom features manage the process efficiently, from recording productivity levels to setting goals and conveying the information to all the right people.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: Its custom fields and layout are specifically designed to implement ranges of performance plans.
✅ Pros:
- Data Visualization: Different charts improve data analysis, for turning the data behind performance indicators into understandable visuals
- Statuses: Status updates notify everyone when dates and goals are met
- Features: Including task dependencies, time tracking, and reminders
❗️ Cons:
- This is designed to manage many processes across multiple internal divisions, and so its features may be too much for smaller projects and groups.
11. Action Plan by Wrike
🏅Best For: Project managers to conduct regular performance reviews
Team wide performance reviews often happen on different days, but having a template can speed them up. This template can document each employee’s status, task history, and upcoming goals. It can help build out goals in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: Whether you’re managing an Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid project, this template can organize your tasks accordingly.
✅ Pros:
- Dashboard: Plenty of features get you started, including pre-built dashboards, sample folders, and a calendar
- File Management: File tasks in different teams, both in-person and remote
- Task monitoring: For both individual tasks and details
❗️ Cons:
- To use this template, you need to purchase the Wrike Business plan.
10. PI Planning Template by Miro
🏅Best For: Developing a program increment planning (PI) workshop
Program Increment Planning gradually aligns employees or teams with company goals, especially valuable during organizational pivots. Miro’s PI Planning Template transforms company objectives into a dynamic workshop where employees collaborate.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: This template generously offers ample space for teams to brainstorm ideas. This facilitates active participation from all participants and ensures comprehensive organization.
✅ Pros:
- Team Communication: In-person or remote
- Board Views: Program, ROAM, Teams, and a PI Planning agenda
- Structured: The PI Event is structured as a two-day event
❗️ Cons:
- The formatting of this template does not easily format with Word and Google documents.
9. Corrective Action Plan Template by Smartsheet
🏅Best For: Creating improvement goals to boost employee performance
👉 Try This Smartsheet Template
When confronted with a process, person, or event negatively impacting your business, utilize this simple corrective action plan template. It enables you to devise actionable steps to address the issue and prevent its recurrence, whether it involves creating a development plan or resolving a supply shortage.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: This template lets you create a formal process for addressing deficiencies within your business.
✅ Pros:
- Record Keeping: Track resources, completion dates, and custom documents
- Status Columns: See how initial plans change over time
- Accessible: Plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere
❗️ Cons:
- There is limited customization away from the problem-solution format.
8. Performance Improvement Plan by Notion
🏅Best For: Managers to improve the performance of an employee who is not meeting expectations
Create a tailored plan for an employee to find new success by engaging them with a new set of strategies that raise their performance levels. This template adheres to a process that includes a problem statement, proposed solution, check-in points, feedback, measurable objectives, and resources for additional training.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: This creates a direct correspondence between the manager and an employee that is both discreet and actionable.
✅ Pros:
- Attachments: Able to attach files
- Feedback: All aspects of the document have a place for feedback and input
- One employee name: The plan is directed at one employee, connected with the manager and human resources
❗️ Cons:
- Lack of advanced features may be too simplistic for some.
7. Performance Review by ClickUp
🏅Best For: Conducting performance reviews
The template includes the tools that make performance reviews quick and effective. Organize the components of a plan, including performance measurement metrics for employee progress and measurement tracking.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: It takes performance reviews to the next level by turning them into engaging projects for the entire team.
✅ Pros:
- Project folders: Each performance review gets a project subfolder
- Tasks: Assign team members to projects
- Accessible: Both in-person and remote
❗️ Cons:
- There is a learning curve to adapt the performance review into projects on the platform.
6. My Development Plan by Miro
🏅Best For: Creating a personal development plan
Gather feedback from past discussions and meetings, along with past achievements and future expectations, and jot them down on a board. Organize these notes into an individual development plan. This plan can be utilized personally but is also shareable with managers and colleagues.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: From your first day at orientation as a new hire, this canvas guides you through the onboarding process, allowing you to take notes on key information. By distinguishing between successful and unsuccessful strategies, you can effectively strategize your next steps.
✅ Pros:
- Boards: Use the same board and duplicate the frame so you can see how you change
- Shareable: Receive feedback from a mentor or colleague by sharing your board
- Sticky notes: Allows you to record all feedback
❗️ Cons:
- This focuses heavily on the recording of feedback and not as much on the action plan.
5. PIP Template by Notion
🏅Best For: Managers making performance plans for underperforming employees
The Skills Improvement Plan Template on Notion is designed for managers to constructively address underperformance or areas needing enhancement in their team members. It allows you to track progress through regular check-ins and concrete observations over time, while adapting the template to your team’s specific needs.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: This structured approach aims to turn poor performance into an opportunity for growth, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
✅ Pros:
- Structured Sections: Expectations, Action Plan, and measured progress
- SMART goals: Set benchmarks to improve performance deficiencies
- Feedback: Allows both manager and employee to share views and understandings
❗️ Cons:
- There is limited customization to the template.
4. 30 Day Performance Improvement Plan by Smartsheet
🏅Best For: Managers creating an employee performance improvement plan
👉 Try This Smartsheet Template
This performance improvement plan template serves as a corrective action tool for addressing employee performance issues. It promotes shared responsibility among the manager, employee, and company to drive improvement. By offering clear and concise documentation, it establishes performance standards that prioritize constructive communication and action over disciplinary measures.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: This method of performance management allows all parties to share in the responsibility when an employee is falling short of goals.
✅ Pros:
- Documentation: Corrective action, provides resources, and provides a time frame of expected results
- Communication: Create a channel for conversation between manager and employee
- Address Performance in Real Time: A formal procedure to help set up an employee for success
❗️ Cons:
- Speak with your HR team to confirm that there is a PIP policy in place and identify when, where, how, and who you need to communicate with prior to meeting with the employee.
3. Performance Improvement Plan by Miro
🏅Best For: Managers creating an improvement plan for employees
This template aims to ensure better outcomes and a cohesive working environment by streamlining communication and providing a clear roadmap for improvement. It facilitates open communication, clearly defines expectations, and offers a roadmap for improvement.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: This lets you build an actionable roadmap for employees to succeed.
✅ Pros:
- Structured communication: Instead of vague feedback, the template ensures that feedback is structured, specific, and actionable
- Clarity and accountability: It clearly outlines expectations and steps for improvement, ensuring the manager and employee understand what’s needed
- Documentation: Provides a written record of performance discussions, which can be crucial for HR processes
❗️ Cons:
- The structure of this template may be too simplistic to account for a complex plan of action.
2. OKR Template by Wrike
🏅Best For: Define the steps to take toward achieving quarterly objectives and key results
Wrike’s OKR template will help you correctly format OKRs and monitor progress to ensure projects stay on track, both in the short and long term. By simplifying your strategic planning, your entire organization can have difficulty moving all work forward.
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: It aligns employees with company goals that are refreshed periodically.
✅ Pros:
- Metrics: Record specific objectives and metrics for success, and determine which tactics and strategies will achieve them
- Check Ins: Set up weekly, monthly, and quarterly check-ins
- Alignment: Link employees with business objectives, then department, team, and individual goals
❗️ Cons:
- This template runs as a free trial before prompting pay to use.
1. Corrective Action Plan by ClickUp
🏅Best For: Creating an action plan
This template provides a comprehensive and user-friendly approach to organizing and visualizing all aspects of your corrective action plan. It facilitates identifying process or policy gaps, analyzing root causes of issues, and developing effective corrective actions to prevent future occurrences. Utilize this tool to craft a successful corrective action plan for your organization and take charge of any situation!
❤️ Why we love this employee improvement plan template: Its intuitive design and powerful features make corrective action planning effortless, allowing teams to address issues proactively and ensure continuous improvement.
✅ Pros:
- Custom Statuses: Create tasks with various custom statuses to keep track of the progress of each corrective action
- Project Management: Improve corrective action tracking with comment reactions, nested subtasks, multiple assignees, and priorities
- Custom Fields: Categorize and add attributes to manage your corrective action plan and easily visualize performance issues
❗️ Cons:
- The colorful style of the template may not suit your preference for a more formal-looking document.
Benefits of Employee Improvement Plan Templates
1) Structure
Employee improvement plan templates provide a structured approach to address underperformance or areas of concern, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous growth.
2) Actionable Steps
These templates enable a measured response, clearly outlining expectations, specific feedback, and actionable steps for improvement, ensuring both the manager and employee understand what’s needed.
3) Progress Tracking
Templates help to set measurable objectives and track progress, keeping the improvement plan goal-oriented and focused on achieving tangible results.
People Also Ask These Questions About Employee Improvement Plan Templates
Q: What is an employee improvement plan template?
- A: An employee improvement plan template is a structured document or tool that provides a framework for managers to address performance issues or areas of needed improvement with an employee. The template provides a standardized approach to constructively address underperformance, foster accountability, and give the employee a fair opportunity to correct issues before more serious disciplinary actions are taken.
Q: What elements are typically included in an employee improvement plan template?
- A: An employee improvement plan template typically includes the following key elements: Employee information, Identification of the specific performance issues, Desired goals or performance expectations, stated in a measurable and objective way, An action plan outlining the specific steps the employee needs to take to improve, including any training, coaching, or resources to be provided, Timelines and deadlines for achieving milestones and overall improvement goals, A schedule for follow-up meetings or check-in points to monitor progress and provide feedback.
Q: Can an employee improvement plan be customized?
- A: Yes, employee improvement plan templates are meant to be customized and tailored to fit the specific situation and needs of the employee and organization. While the core elements like identifying performance issues, setting goals, creating an action plan, and establishing follow-up remain consistent, the details can be modified.
