Small issue with resistant colleague - advice?

[Willow79]

I have an assistant who works with me on various projects to lighten the load. I also work with a wider team who I brief work in to and they simply do what I ask.

However on two occasions now my assistant has questioned why I want a change made to something she has done and then not done it.

Today she showed me design work she had made. I said I liked it overall but could she make it sound less corporate and say 'X' instead to suit this particular audience more. She agreed she would then asked why though?

I explained why but later on I saw that she has now scheduled these designs fo be published on various online platforms without the changes I asked for.

How it appears is that she doesnt agree with my desired changes so she doesn't do them. How can I tackle this?

Disciplinary.

Refusing to obey a reasonable request is a performance issue.

Either straighten her up now, or run the risk of her walking all over you.

I'd find a way to give her less work that she can change / share with the team and get shot of her.

I think in the extreme this is insurbordination. I had an issue in a previous role with similar behaviour and I had to explain that to explicitly go against my request could lead to disciplinary action. I had done everything before that - involved them early on in decisions, backed up requests by email, have opportunity to ask questions. It wasn’t comfortable, but I had HR policy to back it up. Have you spoken to your line manager and checked policy?

I also made a habit, when backing up requests or agreed actions in writing, to say if I didn’t hear from them I took this as agreement/understanding. It created a lot more work for me, but was necessary.

You email her immediately and get her to rescind the designs she's put forward. Something along the lines of 'in case I wasn't clear I want x, y and z.' She ha to explain to the platforms that she sent the wrong things over.

Then once you've got her to deal with this immediate issue you need a face to face with her where you make it very clear that she is to act on any amendments you ask for, and that you could regard her actions as insubordination, and that although don't want to instigate formal disciplinary proceedings,
you are prepared to do so should her conduct not improve. And send her a writtten note of the meeting.

Call her in and ask her why she ignored a direct instruction. And then how she's going to fix it.

If she questions and / or does it again, verbal warning.

agree that you should make her fix the issue right now & use the text you specified.

that should make it pretty clear that what you say is instructions not just hints.

Hi everyone, I am not her line manager so can't really discipline her. Her role is to lighten my load and assist me as she does with 1 or 2 others.

I will send her a short list of outstanding tasks tomorrow and remind her to change the content.

It annoys me when she does this, I find it disrespectful. She will ask 'why' then when I explain she doesn't respond again for a day. Clearly annoyed about it. I couldn't have been more positive about her work overall, I think she needs to accept feedback better.

Send a very clear and factual message. ‘I can see you have sent this for publication. I asked you to change X. Make sure this is done before it is published’.

By itself the questioning wouldn’t necessarily be an issue - she could be asking so she can understand better and avoid making the same ‘mistakes’ in future/improve her work. But in context it doesn’t sound like that is the case?

Can you talk to her line manager about it?

@EduCated

Send a very clear and factual message. ‘I can see you have sent this for publication. I asked you to change X. Make sure this is done before it is published’.

By itself the questioning wouldn’t necessarily be an issue - she could be asking so she can understand better and avoid making the same ‘mistakes’ in future/improve her work. But in context it doesn’t sound like that is the case?

Can you talk to her line manager about it?

This is perfect.

Stop tiptoeing round someone who is supposed to be assisting you. I also like Clymene's suggestion about asking her why she ignored a direct instruction.

You need to make it very clear that you are not offering suggestions, but giving instructions. You have overall approval and your instructions must be completed before publication.

You need to speak to her manager.