To be sad that she thinks I’m a bad boss?

I run a team. And honestly it's not fair on the rest of them that you have left this poor performance go on.

You need to formalise it. Whatever your process is, get her on an improvement plan work with HR do do that.

Please OP, toughen up, managing people isn't about being liked, it helps but fairness and performance are more important.

You want people in your team feeling like they are doing their best work, not being hindered by a slacker.

Sorry if that's harsh, we can show empathy and be supportive but it's a fine line.

I understand you so much! I have been going through a similar thing. I have "inherited" a woman and she is just awful. I have never ever worked with anyone who is so evil. I am working on getting rid of her as she is toxic to the team. Took me awhile to see what she is like as she is a huge gaslighter!

She sounds awful, obviously. And you're not unfeasible you feel how you feel. Most people want to be liked and it's hard feeling like you're not. I've line managed slightly tricky people and had a sinking feeling when months have gone by and I realise I should have done things differently and it's not a nice feeling.
I do, however, agree with the pp who said this doesn't belong on Mumsnet. It doesn't really matter whether it's identifiable or not.

This happens where I work OP, particularly the bit where we as managers let things slide simply because we're also too busy to put a formal action plan together

Start from now, you just put together a formal plan, of tasks expected within reasonable timescales

If she isnt able to manage it, and you have made any reasonable adjustments agreed by HR or OH then its down capability or managed move out.

And unfortunately, I find myself putting things in peoples diaries, which essentially is micromanaging, its not my style but as a manger you sometimes have to adapt according to the worker. If she doesnt do those things, why, what is she doing instead (chatting around the office, procrastinating, avoiding) and then that feeds into the evidence about what she is able to manage.

Op, she's taking the piss out of you, to be blunt. I wonder if you'd have the same drama if you put her on a performance plan and rrequested she's in the office more (dependant on contract conditions).

You can of course be empathetic, most of us humans are. Refer her to occ health. I fell foul of this once and it nearly got me sacked. There's no harm, as a manager, to refer to HR for them to escalate. That's what they are there for.

Then asked me if I was ok because I wasn’t smiley and cheerful.

Presumably, your answer to this was along the lines of "no, not really. There are a number of areas where you need to improve. I've tried being nice about it, but that isn't working. Maybe in trying to be nice, I haven't been clear enough about what you need to do. I will resolve that now...."

I'm an operations manager and when working my way up the need to be liked was strong, I gave leeway when I shouldn't have & let people get away with so much, now I'm much firmer and follow process better, I have found I get more respect, do people like me more, perhaps not, but I treat all my team fairly, being in charge is vey different to bring liked.

I think you need to schedule an appointment with HR involved. She needs to understand that your criteria for her doing her job is not a bad thing. I think she's manipulative. If she's not doing her job she needs to go.

She basically needs a job, she’s more able for, you are not unreasonable

She needs to be put on a PIP - zero excuses for not performing at 100% regardless of what might be going on in an employee's personal life.

So surely you ask your line manager for advice/training?

How would you feel if you recognised yourself on a public internet forum, because your manager was discussing you?

Unfortunately v often when you challenge people they go on the offensive. This has happened to me several times. I think it happens more often than not. Tell her you want to support her to do better but there are the targets she has to meet. You prob already did that. Then try to be thick skinned. She’ll probs leave if it is too uncomfortable

It sounds like she is just difficult to LM. Perhaps in general or just perhaps at this point in her life.

I would just make sure you follow processes and seek any support you need in dealing with her. It won’t be forever. Hopefully she will either up her game or move on or something.

As an alternative perspective - If the terrible time she has had is affecting her working life to the extent that she cant do her work/is crying in meetings etc then it could be a mental health issue (burnout or PTSD). Which is terrible, but NOT your problem to solve, and not something you can solve by being "nice" really. Your job as a manager is to manage her work and address issues. If she is incapable of working, she needs to get herself to the GP and get herself signed of for stress for example, or seek treatment. Our work has counsellors within the medical unit we would be encouraged to speak to in that situation. But not speaking to them, or not doing anything about the issues would be the same as just not turning up to work because you broke your leg but also not going to the doctors or doing anything to fix the broken leg and expecting the manager to informally cover for you without so much as a doctors note.

Or she could just be bad at her job/manipulative. I don't know her or what the specific circumstances are... But sick leave exists for people who have genuine issues (for example if she was assaulted and had PTSD from that) you can't informally circumvent those by just letting her not work.

It sounds like manipulation, and in a way suggesting you are managing her “badly” is a threat. Do you have mid- year reviews or anything like that? This could be an opportunity for you to hold the review jointly, either with your manager or a peer. So that when you go through performance issues, targets missed, suggestions for improvement, it is witnessed that you are doing it professionally, in line with pre- agreed targets, and not bullying. You could say that you need feedback on your performance in managing, to set it up.

Be careful you do everything by the book and get 1-2-1s, improvement requirements etc in writing with proper SMART objectives. I had a direct report similar to this and ended up with an informal bullying allegation (4 pages of things I had done to offend over 3 years) and then formal bullying allegations against my successor who had exactly the same problems.
It took a lot of time to deal with and was upsetting for all. If it happened again I would take stronger action sooner and get HR advice.

You've really got to toughen up because this woman is running roughshod over you.

You need to have a meeting about her performance and her behaviour, giving her a time period in which you expect to see significant improvement. Document everything. If she doesn't make the improvements necessary, you need to start formal proceedings. One bad employee can poison the whole bunch, and if I were one of her colleagues, I would be really fed up with her always taking the piss.

To add, every time she rolls her eyes or does anything else so blatantly disrespectful, you need to address it right there and then. Every single time.

Ah the curse of the underperforming underling. So then your job just becomes trying to get her job done and blamed for both jobs going tits up. It sounds to me like she needs to find a more suitable job that she can perform in.

These threads really make me cringe and I think they make women in management look very unprofessional, when they turn to a public parenting website for advice on how to do their job.

But more importantly, if this employee stumbles across this thread and recognises herself, you'll have proven her right.

I have never been the boss of anybody, so I don't know anything about it, but OP, can you get support about this from someone? Can your boss help you in the situation? Or someone else?

I hope it will all work out, OP!