Driver performance improvement plan: a 30-day plan for late pickups, securement misses, and complaints

When does a driver need a plan instead of a warning?

A performance improvement plan fits a driver who is still doing the job but keeps missing a standard you can measure, such as pickups inside the window or van checks completed. It offers help with a deadline. A write-up records a rule that was broken and where the driver stands under your policy, and the write-up form is the document for that. Conduct that takes a driver off the road the same day, such as suspected impairment or leaving a rider alone, does not wait for a plan. The discipline guide explains the two tracks.

Your brokers use the same tool on you. MTM Health’s Virginia handbook (approved August 10, 2026) says a provider that fails to maintain its objectives can be issued a performance improvement plan, liquidated damages, or termination from the network, and it sets on-time performance above 95.00 percent. CareOregon’s NEMT manual requires providers to plan regular evaluations for every driver, asks that each be documented and signed with positive notes filed too, and says a plan of correction should be developed and additional training provided if needed. A driver plan built on the same measures keeps the driver’s number and the company’s number moving together. When the broker’s plan is the one on your desk, the corrective action plan template is the document for it.

How to fill in the plan

Do the work before the meeting, because the plan is only as fair as the records behind it.

1. Pull the driver’s own trip records for the last 30 to 60 days. The scheduled and actual times, the van checks, and the complaint log are the starting point. The performance metrics guide lists the measures and how to calculate them.
2. Tag each late or missed trip with a cause (driver, schedule, or outside) and count only the driver-caused ones.
3. Choose two or three targets, each with a baseline, a goal, and the record it is read from. More than three and the driver cannot tell what matters.
4. Decide what the company will do. A plan that asks only for improvement is a warning with a deadline. Offer a securement refresher, a ride-along, a changed start time, or a corrected map pin for the address that keeps causing trouble.
5. Put the four check-ins on the calendar before the meeting, one a week, 15 minutes each.
6. Meet, ask the driver first, and change whatever the driver shows is wrong. Then both of you sign.

The plan

Part A: Driver and plan dates

Part B: What the records show

Part C: Targets

Part D: What the company will provide

Part E: Weekly check-ins

Part F: Day 30 decision

Part G: Comments and signatures

My signature means I received this plan and talked it over. It does not mean I agree with every line. I may add my own statement.

An example: late pickups, one securement miss, no complaints

This example uses made-up numbers. A driver made 240 pickups in the four weeks before the plan, and 34 landed outside the 15-minute window. Six of those traced to dispatch adding a trip with no drive time, which leaves 28 driver-caused misses. The driver’s on-time rate is 206 of 240, or 85.8 percent, and 88.3 percent once the six schedule-caused trips come out (212 of 240 counted as on time). The broker’s bar is above 95 percent. On 60 pickups a week, 2 late is 96.7 percent on time, and 3 late is exactly 95.0, which is not above the bar.

The plan sets weekly caps so the driver can see progress: no more than 6 late of 60 in week 1, 4 in week 2, and 2 in weeks 3 and 4. Day 30 is read on weeks 3 and 4 only, so one rough first week does not decide it. Percentages on small samples swing, which is why Part C asks for a count out of a stated number of trips.

The second target comes from one complaint about a strap that was not tight on a wheelchair ride. The company offers a securement refresher in week 1 and two observed rides scored on the securement checklist in week 2 and week 4. The third target is no substantiated complaint, with the complaint log as the record.

When the problem may tie to a health condition

The standard stays the same, and the help getting there may change. The EEOC’s guidance on performance and conduct standards (issued 2008-09-03) covers how to handle this, and four points matter on a plan:

• The same targets apply. The EEOC says an employee with a disability must meet the same production standards, quantitative or qualitative, as others in the job. Lowering a standard is not an accommodation, though an accommodation may help the employee meet it, for example a changed start time or a different pickup order.
• The driver does not need special words. An employee only has to say an adjustment or change at work is needed because of a medical condition. When a driver says morning pickups are hard because of a new medication, treat it as a request and talk about what would help.
• Pause the clock, not the standard. In the EEOC’s example, a supervisor who had set a one-month period to improve is told he need not rescind his warning, but that delaying the one-month period while the request is decided lets him assess the employee’s performance accurately. Do the same: note the pause and restart the plan when the decision is made. An accommodation request that first arrives at a termination meeting is a different case, because an employer is not required to excuse earlier performance problems.
• Ask only for the documentation the EEOC names. The EEOC lets an employer seek documentation of whether a condition is a disability, how it affects performance, and what accommodations might help. When the employer starts the medical questions without any request from the driver, it needs objective evidence that a medical reason is the likely cause. In the EEOC’s example of an employee found asleep at a desk, that evidence was missing, because a second job or family problems could explain it.

The ADA covers employers with 15 or more employees who worked at least 20 calendar weeks this year or last (EEOC), and some state laws cover smaller companies. California’s disability protections under the Fair Employment and Housing Act start at five employees (California Civil Rights Department). CareOregon lists observed changes in mental condition, health, or stamina that affect the job among its reasons for intervention training. Write down what you saw (the missed pickups, the skipped steps), not a guess about the cause. If the driver needs help to take part in the meeting itself, such as written back-and-forth for a deaf driver, the EEOC says that accommodation may be required too.

Leave is a separate rule. FMLA-covered employers (50 or more employees) cannot use FMLA leave as a negative factor in disciplinary actions (29 CFR 825.220(c)), so leave days and the trips on them come out of the sample.

What the driver can see, add, and keep

Give the driver a copy and treat the plan as part of the personnel file. California’s Labor Commissioner says employees may inspect personnel files used to decide qualifications, promotion, pay, termination, or discipline (Labor Code 1198.5), and the write-up form page shows how California, Illinois, and Massachusetts handle access and written responses. Part G leaves room for the driver’s own statement.

Keep the closed plan and the weekly numbers. They are the proof that the driver was told what was expected and offered help, and the employee record retention guide gives the keeping period.

Day 30: four decisions

Write the decision on the form the same day. Which one applies comes from the numbers on weeks 3 and 4, not from an impression.

• Met. Write one line closing the plan and note the date in the file. Drop back to the normal quarterly review. An open plan that nobody closes still reads as a warning.
• Partly met. Extend once, with a new date and only the target that is still short. Use it when a miss is narrow or the sample was small, not as a way to avoid the decision.
• Not met. Take the next step under your discipline policy, whether that is a final warning, work off the road, or ending the job. If it ends the job, the guide to firing a NEMT driver covers final pay and the notices.
• Paused. Leave, a van out of service, a broker removal, or an accommodation request stops the clock. Write the pause date and the restart date.

Pulling the numbers from HealthRide

Parts B and C ask for scheduled and actual times, and HealthRide keeps them. For each leg the trip log shows the driver, the vehicle, the scheduled and actual times, and GPS-verified miles, and punctuality is tracked on every leg, overall and per driver. The reports page covers the exports, and late warnings on the live map let a supervisor raise a problem on the day it happens instead of at the next check-in.