I resigned my current position before I was officially put on a coaching plan

Hello everyone!

So I recently resigned from my position in the private sector. Before I resigned, I was told that I was in need of additional coaching, and that some sort of coaching was going to come my way. But before that discussion happened, I had already accepted a new position with a new employer that requires a security clearance.

My question is, how (if at all), should I report this on future sf86 forms? For the questions that say: “Have you ever been asked to resign from a position in lieu of being fired?” or “Have you and your employer come to a mutual agreement for you to resign because of your performance?”

I want to be as honest and transparent about this as possible. In my opinion, I resigned before any action was taken, and everything that was communicated to me was verbal. But to be safe, I think I should note this on the sf86 form to be as transparent as possible if they were to contact my previous employer.

I would love if some investigators could chime in here!

@sbusquirrel Any chance you could chime in on this?

It’s a pretty clear cut question. Only you and HR knows what actually happened.

So HR never contacted me before I resigned. Only my manager alluded to additional coaching. That is all.

@Marko Any chance you could chime in here?

If the coaching was related to improving performance and you were not asked to resign then the answer is no. You could add in a comment on that if you want to clarify the performance issue.

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I agree with what @Marko said. Sometimes this “coaching” is called a Performance Improvement Plan or some other process to they can use to document that you are being terminated for unsatisfactory performance. But that is usually accompanied by a lot of paperwork and it sounds like they never actually started that process. This situation sounds much less formal and you got out of what was clearly not a good fit. That’s a plus for you and does not sound like anything that needs to be reported.

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@sbusquirrel There would have been some sort of formal plan, but it never got to that point because I resigned before then. I was never asked to resign. Yes, I agree the position was not a good fit.

@Marko The coaching was related to performance. It would have been some sort of plan. I was never asked to resign.

Awesome, thanks for chiming in!

Yeah if it was truly coaching and a performance improvement INTENT…then no, no reporting required. Because you were not asked to resign.

In many cases it is only worded this way to signal “look, eventually we are firing you, this is to cover our butts so we can show we tried and we care. After all humans are our greatest resource.” Or similar nonsense.
It MAY be a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” effort to pre signal this. And choosing to resign, part on good terms, not burn bridges, and certainly not be fired or asked to resign…is best. For both parties.
I did this in a contract company switchout. They had to have me based on my track record of success, gave a huge boost in salary (red flag). Made life hell for 4 months. So I opted to resign. But was caught in same dilemna. How do I capture this? In the end it worked out for me. That PM was fired, the replacement at lower salary scored 35 points lower for the next award fee rating. Karma.

Sounds like you left before you got put on that coaching plan so it never happened. Unless they threatened to fire you if you didn’t quit (they do ask that), this probably does not need to be on your responses. If they ever ask you if you were were put on some sort of performance improvement plan at a previous job (they might ask at follow-up or poly), then that’s where you would tell them about this. It should not cause problems unless you lie about it.

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Agree, hard to bring up in Poly but I get a feeling they hear so much trash…dirty laundry, nothing surprises them.

Yeah, I would bring it up, but I never got put on the plan, I left for a new job before anything happened. So I would answer no, I have never been put on a performance improvement plan.