Hi everyone, hoping for some line management advice please! I know this is going to sound like a pathetic thing to ask but I want to get it right.
I am a middle manager in the public sector (very new to this dept) and have been lucky in that I have never really had to pull anyone up firmly before. But now I do.
This isn't a disciplinary or anything, I just need this person to improve substantially and to be aware of the issues in good time to do so before their appraisal. She is on a short term contract which may not be renewed if my LM does not see an improvement so her carrying on regardless is not really an option.
I manage this one lady (my job is more policy than running a team) who does my team's admin and helps with the business side. She is a lovely person and I want to help her develop.
However, there are several issues relating to her completion of tasks, communication and quality of work.
I recognise that I need to take action, such as checking and mapping progress more regularly but hers is a junior management grade so some autonomy and proactivity is expected.
She has been on the team about a year. I have been there 5 weeks but my LM highlighted the issues to me when I started.
I have tried to help her to improve day to day, with training, putting processes and tools in place and assuring her she is more than welcome to ask if unsure what to do. But it hasn't really worked. Even when I have raised issues in the context of mistakes she has made, she just blithely agrees to everything I say and does not improve so i need to do this a bit more firmly and formally.
I will discuss this with my manager before we talk but wanted to see whether the conversation should go as follows (shit sandwich approach) or whether anyone has better ideas:
Ask generally how she is doing.
Say I would like to raise some areas for improvement
Acknowledge her work in one or 2 areas.
Ask what, if any, issues or difficulties she feels she is finding with the job
Outline the 4 main points I want her to improve on, with examples of this affecting her work
Discuss ways to improve
Thank her for the good points she is bringing to the team
assure her that her mistakes so far are not the end of the world but could cause issues (operationally) if improvements are not made.
Check if she understands everything
Follow up with an email briefly spelling out the points raised.
Also, one of the problems is that her correspondence is fairly sloppy and unprofessional. She has been working in admin for many, many years now and I am a bit unsure how to get her to improve this!
It isn't really formatting or using unprofessional language, more that she writes in a stream of consciousness that is quite hard to understand but makes perfect sense to her. Therefore I'm not sure if a training course would help (if there is one). Any ideas on how to approach this, please?!
Many thanks in advance for any advice!