How to deal with employee who always assumes malicious intent?

[ToClimb]

Looking for some advice. I have an employee who is very good at their job, can be relied upon and could go far in her career, however, she is becoming more and more unmanageable. She has always had a habit of being extremely detailed about things and becoming over involved. We manage contracts and sometimes it feels like she actually tries to manage the delivery of the contract. This means that she spends far too long doing simple tasks, so does half the workload of anyone else. But complains she has too much work and can't do any more.

When I try to work with her to talk about this, she gets defensive and has started to become more and more passive aggressive. It is starting to impact others. She rolls her eyes and huffs in meetings and I'm at the end of my tether with her.

Any ideas how to approach this. I am starting to dread working with her.

How are you approaching the conversations with her?

Have you pointed out this behaviour to her and asked if she is aware of it and the reasons why she is acting this way? In private of course. If you haven’t already it’s time to set clear boundaries and expectations about behaviour and attitude. By all means offer support to help her to this if she needs it with regular follow ups and reviews. Time for tough love.

Extremely detailed and spends "too long" doing simple tasks. Sounds like me. If you asked me though , other people arnt doing those simple tasks correctly which is why they're doing them so quickly - which is why when we get an audit, anything that is my work always comes back as stellar, but we get in trouble if it's someone else's work being audited because they've missed a tonne of things. Thankfully, my manager recognises this though, and told me not to change or worry about the time I take.

So, I suppose I want to ask, is she actually doing those simple tasks to a better standard? Does she have strong points to her work?

Woukd her strength in being detailed be a strong plus point if given other tasks to do? Because in many roles that would be a strength - maybe not in the one she has now, but could there be a way your team could make the most of it?

Don't expect a fish to fly.

Maybe she's being pissy because she recognises that actually she has strengths that you're completely overlooking. Maybe she feels that her colleagues are falling below standard and it's just being allowed to happen, whilst she is getting targeted just for being meticulous trying to keep standards up.

Just a thought. Might be entirely wrong. Might be worth you considering though.

Yes I have pointed out her behaviour and it's impact on others. She doesn't grasp it and thinks managers are picking on her. I've been approaching conversations in a supportive way, telling her how she is appreciated and we see her going far, but she needs to work more collaboratively.

For example we have a lit of checks and balances with contracts. 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. They are all specialists and know what they are doing.

She is getting in her own way at getting promotion etc because of this. Which seems to breed resentment, not only in her but also those whose work she is checking , but she can't see that 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.

Are you her boss?

How long has she worked there?

She refuses to do other tasks outside of her job description, so giving her tasks more suited to her skill set is impossible. She really would be great in an operational role but she would have to take a pay cut to get one so refuses. She doesn't understand that you need experience in that arsa to get where she is now in a no operational role@Agix

Are you her employer ( ie the business owner), or are you a more senior employee and if so, is she your direct report?

....and for how long has she been continuously employed by the company?

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.

I am her line manager. We are a tiny company.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

I have offered this. She refuses. She sees everyone else as the problem. It's good to hear that I'm not the only one who has experienced this.its really sad because I like her and think in another tike she would be great. Others dread being in meetings or working with her.

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

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.

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.

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

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

and how many is “tiny”?

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.

^ this.

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

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.