WWYD - staff member becoming unreliable

[Millionairerow]

I started a new job in June this year. It has been going well on the whole and I've had great support from the staff who report to me on the whole. However we are all extremely busy and there is not much give in the system. There is one team member who is starting however to look disengaged and I need to get to the bottom of it. I need all the staff as we work with one client and this is the first time we've had stability of nearly a year. This client is extremely disorganised and my staff member seems to get extremely irritated by this but culture doesn't change overnight. The good work the team are doing is doing is helping our client organise themselves better. My team member offered to sort out the invoices for her particular area from her colleague. She had a great system for detailing what work staff had done but never got the thing done to the specifications from finance. I ended up sorting 2 months worth of invoices, she did one invoice now we're behind on another two despite given extensions and being told it needed done. I asked for regular updates and she has been ignoring me. She eventually replied saying she planned to do it on the weekend. I need to approve it but went on holiday for a week so arranged for it to be signed off by my new boss but she's not done it! She is now out of office for at least 2 weeks and no update at all. WWYD? I'm obviously alienating her but I need to tackle this in the most constructive way possible. I'm annoyed as well though as she said despite. Her offering to take it on, she said she needed help in June, I finalised 2 months worth for her and now no communication on progress. When her colleague did it there was no fuss but I feel I can't give it back to her as she had enough to deal with. Now I have to go back to my busy schedule and fit this work in. It's not just that though, we had a team building day and she made no effort to socialise. During the team sessions she engaged but out of that had a look of can't be bothered to. She's the one who usually gets the most negative press if not being helpful. It's a shame as she is good at what she does but I'm concerned I've lost her. WWYD to try and turn it around? I don't feel however the fact she's let me down go by without a discussion on why she's not kept me informed when she does on everything else.

[rookiemere]

Honestly - I'd have her on an informal disciplinary process based on the invoice debacle alone.

She may be good when she cares to be but she has no teamwork ethic and what I've learnt over the years is I'd rather have someone that is say 70% good at their job, but is reliable, turns up every day and does what they are instructed to, compared to someone who might be marvellous, but is not reliable and winds up their co-workers.

I'd have a very straight conversation with her and tell her and write down the specific actions she needs to take in order to get her performance back on track, and offer her support to do that. What she chooses to do with that is up to her not you, provided you as a manager have stated what the issues are, provided an action plan for improvement and are willing and able to offer the support that she might need to implement it.