How to deal with employee who always assumes malicious intent?

But she is getting through half the work that other members of staff in the same role are doing because she is checking other people's work that isn't part of her job. OP can set daily targets as part of a PIP.

You say that she is very good at her job, but it doesn't sound as though she is. She cannot or will not obey direct instructions from you, her manager, and continues to check the work of other people that she is not qualified to do. This means that she is getting through half the workload that other people in the same role are achieving.

Her attitude and response to your concerns are unacceptable. She is basically refusing to be managed. You need to initiate performance management procedures and set her daily targets. Honestly, she sounds like a complete pain in the arse who knows better than her own manager and other experts on the team.

@ToClimb

"Each team member adds there specialism and she needs to use this info to manage the contract as well as her own in put. She will go back and recheck everyone else's jobs. This is not needed."

You say she wont do tasks outside of her job description - this is an example of her doing just that.

Flag it to her and tell her to buck her fucking ideas up and either work collaboratively as the company expects - and if not - then start disciplinary proceedings on her for failing to adhere to reasonable management requests.

A job description is not written in stone like the 10 Commandments and allows for flexibility - everyone knows that.

If she is pissing away valuable time checking tasks that are not hers to check, its no wonder shes not getting any work done and that this is also impacting the wider team.

High time to stop molly coddling to her and time to put your foot down. You are her manager.

So manage her.

redoing work already done by others is not a strength, it makes her job longer and is not needed. These other people are registered experts and she is not. She has been given no reason to do this. They are all competent.

I think you need to challenge her and put her on the spot by explicitly asking her why she is redoing work that’s complete. She’ll either point out a valid reason or not have one, either way you can then address it.

Often employees are very aware when their managers don't like them. You dread meetings with her, have suggested she move to another role and take a paycut. I bet she knows you don't like her and is terrified that you will try to manage an exit (like many here are suggesting). That is putting her in a position where she can't afford any mistakes to happen on her watch, and probably entrenching this behaviour.

She won't do any work outside of her job description as she doesn't have the time. And when it comes down to it if you want to get rid of her she needs to be able to demonstrate she is fulfilling her job description.

The relationship sounds like it's broken down on both sides here. And as her manager it's up to you to reframe it. You dread meetings with her, but she will dread meetings with you too. You need to try and make her feel secure and then you will get better work out of her.

Her behaviour is escalating and it's making life tough for everyone.

and given you are her line manager, it’s your responsibility to deal with it

you say the company is “tiny”… how many? Surely the owner is aware?

Honestly, if she's not responding to supportive chats, then you need to relay what you've written in the last two paragraphs to her. If her behaviour is impacting other members of a small team, you risk the chance one or more of these employees will get fed up and start looking for other jobs.

Ultimately, a company can't be paying an employee to do unnecessary work, which they have been asked to not do and aren't qualified for, just because they've decided they fancy having a go at it!

I think you'd be hard pressed to put an employee who is doing good detailed work and sticking to their job description on a pip, because they haven't taken your suggestions of moving to a lower paid role and are refusing to pick up tasks outside of their job.

She sounds incompetent and a nightmare, manage her out. People like this are toxic to the rest of the team, especially if it looks like you're not doing anything about it

^ this.

If she is checking everyones work, how often is she finding problems? Can you ask her to list everytime she does? If she isn't finding issues this may make her realise that and if she is you can address with the relevant people.

How long has she been there and you her line manager?

and how many is “tiny”?

Has she been with you more than 2 years? That is a key question.

How blunt are you being with her? Are your supportive conversations actually just leaving her feeling that she’s doing OK - and, perhaps, that if she just works a bit harder (ie does even more of other people’s jobs) she’ll get promoted.
Perhaps a conversation which is simply that you know she wants to be promoted but you cannot promote her whilst she is continuing to do X and Y. Further, you rather than her are responsible for managing other people’s jobs and how well they do them. You have confidence in them and trust them so want her to do the same.

Have worked with people like this, I feel your pain.

We have supervision at my work and have made supervision agreements where one of the questions is how you would like to receive developmental feedback. This makes it explicit that this may need to happen and puts it back to people to describe how. So it helps when the time comes.

Also google ‘non violent communication’. Bit of a weird name but a simple way to frame more difficult feedback.

At the end of the day she’s the employee and needs to do the job how it’s expected of her and not how she thinks. Will need a formal improvement plan ultimately as pp says.

There is a book called ‘Thanks for the Feedback’ which sets out different ways people respond to feedback. Ideally it would be for the colleague but can be helpful for the manager as well to understand the reaction. You could also try responding by telling them ‘you are safe’. This be never tried the latter but from recent personal experience, I wonder if it could help.

What is the reason she has given for checking other people’s work? And what excuse does she have for doing this when you’ve told her not to?

Just keep being factual with her and let her get on with it. If she's not doing her job properly then she's the problem not you and you need to manage that in the same way you'd manage someone who kept stopping to do their nails during working hours.

"X you need to get this done by x time" when x time rolls around and its not done... "X we need to discuss your timing, this was a reasonable task to complete in x hours, why do you think you are behind?" "Here is a clear flow diagram of the process I would like you to follow as I've noticed you going off task which is taking longer" if she fails to stick to the tasks then the issue is her competency. I think if you keep telling her she's great that's all she's going to listen to.

Have you asked her why she is checking other people’s work and if so what was her response?

I used to manage someone like this and it was very difficult. We actually got on well because I tried to see that behind it was someone who was a perfectionist and hugely insecure. But she received multiple complaints of bullying because she expected the same standards in people she managed. There wasn't an easy solution unfortunately. She got more and more difficult and her team got unhappier. She went through lots of management training which didn't do much good and eventually she had some 1:1 coaching which did make a difference. I think it created a safe space for her to talk about her behaviour and impact on others. Even better if you can prep the coach first.

If you can, you need to put her on a PIP, with a set of targets to reach in a certain timeframe. She's not responding to the way you've approached the issue so far, so it's time to try a different tack.