RE: Advice, please

["Michele Marques" <marquesm -at- autros -dot- com>]

I see that you received a number of good suggestions, especially if you are
strongly thinking of letting Betty go. If you want to try to make things
work, I have the following suggestion.

One possibility is that Betty has so many different types of corrections to
perform that she loses track of whether all changes have been completed, or
just picks a few that she feels she can complete within the deadline.

Perhaps you can send her a check-list with reviewed documents. Ask her to
send it back with the revised document, with everything checked off that she
believes that she completed. You can also ask her to insert her comments or
questions after any items that she couldn't complete, or that she wasn't
sure were completed correctly.

This would serve three purposes:

(1) Betty can keep track of her progress and see what is left to finish off
her changes.

(2) You know what Betty thinks she is doing right. For example, she may
check off that
    she has corrected the document to only use styles from the style guide.
If she is
    doing these things right, you can use this as a measure of improvement
(especially
    if she continues to self-correct for this without being asked in the
future). If
    she did not complete the item correctly, you know where she needs to be
educated.
    Make sure that you tell her promptly that she did not complete those
tasks
    correctly, especially if you are trying to leave a paper trail in case
you need to
    fire her.

(3) Betty is provided the opportunity to ask questions when she doesn't know
what to do.
    Hopefully, instead of checking off a task as done (or maybe in addition
to checking
    it off), she will ask questions that will help you educate her.

Alternatively, perhaps you can edit on multiple passes and on each pass just
send her a few types of corrections to make (letting her know that you are
not sending her all corrections at once).

Good luck! You might also want to go to http://www.about.com and subscribe
to their management group. You will find a lot of people there with
suggestions and questions about dealing with problem employees.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michele Marques, Technical Writer
AUTROS Healthcare Solutions, Inc.
marquesm -at- autros -dot- com <mailto:marquesm -at- autros -dot- com>

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