exchanges, the Goldman Sachs podcast featuring exchanges on the forces driving the markets and the economy,

exchanges between the leading minds at Goldman Sachs.

New episodes every week. Listen now.

Here's your money briefing for Thursday, December 5th.

I'm J.R. Waylon for the Wall Street Journal.

As companies tighten budgets and look to boost efficiency,

they often use performance as a metric when looking to downsize staff.

For employees not meeting their goals,

performance improvement plans or PIPs are on the rise.

Because a PIP is really do or die.

It usually says on the formal document that you receive when you're put on a plan,

failure to meet these expectations or meet these goals could result in termination.

We'll talk to Wall Street Journal Workplace reporter Lauren Weber.

After the break.

This podcast is brought to you by CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace,

offering the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes.

CME Group, where risk meets opportunity.

Music The percentage of workers subject to performance actions, including performance improvement plans, has increased about 30% since 2020. Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Weber joins me.

Lauren, what is the purpose of a performance improvement plan?

On the face of it, it's to improve someone's performance.

The idea is that if an employee is not meeting expectations or underperforming, that you come up with a systematic list of things that they can do within a certain

amount of time in order to improve, get back on track, and keep their jobs. That's the outward reason

...