Firings often come down to differences in expectations. Sometimes those differences arise due to communication failures by both the manager and the employee. I don't see "second chances" as "half firings". I see it as an opportunity to reset expectations appropriately, and if there are still differences, then action must be taken.
Talking to someone about correcting their actions or improving is completely normal -- I've never managed someone who didn't respond positively to discussing their performance constructively.
Telling someone to "improve or else" is a completely different animal. If you want that employee to focus on doing their job (and improving their performance) they have to not be wasting energy looking for another job. From their perspective, moving to another job before they're fired is much better for their career (and ego) than sticking around and possibly getting fired.
I've only been in the situation once where I had to "reset expectations" and that was because the employee was not hired at will and we were hoping that person would resign (they did).
Telling someone to "improve or else" is a completely different animal. If you want that employee to focus on doing their job (and improving their performance) they have to not be wasting energy looking for another job. From their perspective, moving to another job before they're fired is much better for their career (and ego) than sticking around and possibly getting fired.
I'm not sure why you'd immediately jump to the conclusion that employees would be looking for another job. That's something which may be completely out of your control (whether they're bad, good, happy, or disgruntled at their job) so why worry about it?
You're also making this hypothetical "improve or else" conversation more negative than I see it happening. Like I said, in grad school, when I failed my quals the first time the committee gave me constructive feedback. Sure, I could have been like "fuck this" and went to a different school, but then again, I knew the rules when I signed up and I chose to honor them. I also felt like their feedback was reasonable. It was nothing personal and when 5 people agree on something, its easy to see where you came up short. I also had a chance to rebuttal if I thought their grading was wrong.
Secondly, failing my quals gave them a chance to help me. Previously I thought I knew what to do on my own, so I never bothered them with questions. Afterwards, I clearly saw the mismatch in expectations, so I pestered them until I was sure the answer they were looking for was the one I was spending my time on figuring out.
If you're envisioning a one-way "improve or else" conversation taking place, then yeah, I agree with you. But this should be a dialog where both parties are willing to admit they were in the wrong.
