You situation may be different from lovewalking's. In his/her case, it's clear the manager wants him/her out. The only question is how easy or painful the process is going to be for everyone. lovewalking can simply stick around and go through the "performance improvement" process, collecting paychecks and being an eye sore for the manager all the while. lovewalking will have to live with the consequence of being fired for performance reason though. Or he/she can choose to leave "voluntarily" in exchange for a severance package. There's usually no explicit HR rule for this type of situations. But good sense will often prevail and a win-win settlement can be reached.