How to deal with employee who always assumes malicious intent?

Others dread being in meetings or working with her..

how many “others” given the company is tiny?
and I am baffled that she’s been allowed to behave like this for half a decade unchecked

And you keep referring to her as “my” employee.

She isn’t. She was employed 3.5 years previous to you. By the company.

That’s rather bizarre
a “tiny” company that actively encourages employees to look for jobs outside their company, rather than channeling efforts on developing them.

how tiny is “tiny”

do you line manage others?

This employee has openly admitted to applying for positions externally?

If I were another member of your team and my work was being checked like that for no reason except to find fault with it, I'd think I was being bullied.

She sounds autistic to me. The attention to detail, rigid thinking, unable to see the impact on others and modify her behaviour in response. If so she could access 1:1 coaching through the access to work fund to help with this.

I think you need to be really blunt and clearly set out expectations. Follow up verbal conversations by email. Set out expectations in a clear bulleted list. “Do not check x work. This is not part of your job role. If there are mistakes they aren’t your responsibility to fix.” She needs to adjust her mindset as to what is her actual role and sounds like she isn’t there yet. Autistic people can be really rule-based. If she had an internal rule that her report shouldn’t contain any mistakes, she’ll find it really hard to overrule that. You need to explicitly say that others’ mistakes are ok.

Is she neurodiverse and anxious as a result? You can tell her that the expectation is to get an x amount of work done by Y time and the reason she struggles is because she is checking other’s work, which is unnecessary. Does she need help to change her approach? Are there any difficulties trying to achieve change? You will have no alternative but ti put her on a PiP and if there is no improvement, she is not suited to the role

It shouldn’t be a choice for her! Give her the option of coaching and actually doing it properly or she leaves

Assuming you also manage the other people whose work she is re-doing I would strongly recommend that you need to shift your focus from this one individual to looking at it as a team-wide issue.

You have one individual who is having a negative impact on individuals as well as team cohesiveness. Their work is being checked and undermined by someone who has no experience or qualifications and so far, it seems, this is being allowed.

This is going to have an impact on moral and how valued they feel.

You need to step up and step in immediately when she double-checks someone's work to be very clear that not only is it not necessary but it is not allowed.

Your team need to feel supported by you.

I appreciate this isn't the only issue you have with her but suspect if you don't tackle this specific one head on then you are going to have a lot of other issues to deal with very shortly!

TBH, she needs to be performance managed, disciplined and then sacked off.

Paying her off rewards incompetence. Fuck that shit.

Have you sat down with her and given clear instructions and targets to meet?

"Do not check work done by your colleagues. Check your own work, but not work done by anyone else."

"This task should be completed in X time, if you haven't completed it within that time frame then, whatever the reason, you are not reaching the expected standard".

That's almost like a pre-PIP - verbal instructions that mirror what would appear in writing on a PIP.

At this point I would discuss with senior management whether anyone sees this working out. Not even just for promotion but at her job.

It people do think it can be turned around you would need a clear come to Jesus conversation paying out exactly what her role is, what it is not, the feedback that you’ve been having, black and white metrics for delivery and formally document through a PIP. Perhaps there are other senior people she might listen to?

If the answer is no - and I suspect this is where you really are - do you try and grind through performance improvement plans to do a lawful exit which is miserable for everyone if you don’t see she can pass or do you (with professional advice) look to have a protected conversation to agree an exit as an alternative to doing a PIP. Yes it is brutal and costs some money but honestly it pretty common in the private sector. Don’t wing this though, make sure you have specialist HR or legal advice on how to do.

Time management plans can work with people who work like this. Timeblocking, clear weekly outcomes and boundaries to help her focus on what she needs to do.
She also wants to work rowarda a rpimotion, so clear bullet points of what she needs to do tk ahceive the next level.
Then its in her hands if she wants to take the advice or not

If you haven't already, you need to start being REALLY clear with her about the issues and then making a note of each conversation and emailing it to her afterwards.

What does the CEO of the company think? Would they consider either starting formal performance management, or paying her off?

Really interested that you describe her as very good at her job but then go on to describe a whole host of behaviours that indicate she isn't. Is it convenient that her obsession with detail is sometimes useful but you want her to turn that off when it becomes a blocker? A good employee is someone who does their job in a way that doesn't impact others negatively. Performance management is exhausting and time consuming but part of a managers job. It's rare for anyone exhibiting this sort of set of behaviours to be magically fixed after one conversation. You have to be consistent.

You will of course need to get the buy in of whoever owns or is running the business.

If she's been with the company for less than 2 years (ie if her employment could be terminated with pay in lieu of notice and it would be possible for her termination date to fall before she has attained 103 weeks' continuous employment), then her employment could be terminated and she would not be able to bring a claim of unfair dismissal. The company would, however, need to be careful that she does not argue that the company has been discriminatory or that her dismissal is some sort of whistleblowing detriment, or that she does not have another claim for which she does not need any continuity. The company should make it very clear to her why they are terminating her employment.

If she's been employed for more than 2 years, then the time has come to start a formal improvement improvement process. The company really needs advice from someone who knows what they're doing, because this process is generally quite fraught, if the employee does not accept that there is a problem, and she could claim unfair dismissal and/or some other statutory claim.

The company should tee up a performance improvement process, which would lead to termination of her employment with notice if she doesn't make the necessary improvements over a measured period of time, but offer her a settlement agreement as an alternative for a quick, neutral exit. A disgruntled former employee can threaten/bring disruptive claims, even if they have no realistic prospect of success.

How long has she been there?

If under 2 years, do some googling/research on PIPs, follow a short pip which includes informing her of the issues in writing exit her from the business.

Over 2 years... you'll need a specialist HR support hired in if the company doesnt have one.

Or you'll need to "starve" them out. No payrise (as in actually 0% not 2% when everyone else gets 5%) and no bonus keep doing it until thry get the message and clear flag the same issues in every performance review and revisit pip in a year when they'll accept the reality of their situation a bit more

How long has she been there?

If under 2 years, do some googling/research on PIPs, follow a short pip which includes informing her of the issues in writing exit her from the business.

Over 2 years... you'll need a specialist HR support hired in if the company doesnt have one. Do a pip. She's doing half the work and doing it with a shitty attitude so should be straightforward.

If you cannot immediately run a pip for some reason you'll need to "starve" them out. No payrise (as in actually 0% not 2% when everyone else gets 5%) and no bonus keep doing it until thry get the message and clear flag the same issues in every performance review and try and revisit pip in a year when they'll accept the reality of their situation a bit more

I have an employee like this - it’s almost like paranoid narcicism: they seem incapable of working as part of a team and can’t see things from other people’s perspectives. It’s really tough as often the behaviours aren’t quite bad enough for a PIP but bad enough to cause unhappiness in the workplace. We are now going down the PIP route and she is trying to fight it.