STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

is she on some sort of probationary period where you can fire her now with no repurcussions? if you can give her another week and still be able to fire her without massive amounts of paperwork, then give her another week. if that's not possible, then, honestly...id say get her out of there. she's not just being a slow employee who gets her work done evantually, but it sounds as if she never gets her work done and then other people have to do her work. why pay someone for not doing thier work and making other people's live harder? there isn't any sense on paying other people overtime and her regular time, it's a waste of money. so, sorry, sweetie...do you have to fire her yourself or will hr take care of that? it sounds like she needs to go as soon possible.

If she has only been there a week, I'd probably give her more time to adjust.  Make sure she's clear on the expectations and requirements of the job.  Also, when you give her tasks, give her a timeline for completing it.  Make sure she knows what things need to be done right away.

All that said, if you have already made expectations clear and are certain that she knew the reports needed to be entered right away, let her go.

Thanks for those who responded.  I decided to sit down and talk to her the same week and we went over EVERYTHING she had learned up to that point, which was only Systems Procedures.  At this point she should have been trained on more business processes such as invoicing, reporting, etc.  Anyway I asked her if she had any questions to PLEASE let me know, not to hesitate or feel intimidated as we have all gone thru the training process.  I voiced my concerns on how slow she was and how repetitive the same mistakes were and let her know I wanted to see an improvement within the next week. 

Well nothing changed, we had several BIG mistakes that threw me over the roof and a bunch of unanswered emails at the end of the day.  There was NO communication, she always answered, "OK, Yes, I understand...No questions".  So by the end of Thursday last week I decided to tell my HR dept that I had decided that she wasn't going to work for my dept.  Friday I felt really bad and decided to "warn her" so she wouldn't be in shock when HR told her.  I let her know I didn't think she was the right fit for our dept and again, voiced my reasons why.  As always... all she said was "OK, Yes, I understand...No questions". 

Fast forward to 1PM HR calls her down then shortly after call me down and they put me us both in the same room to confront ea. other!!!! Which BTW was really weird, I thought HR took c/o all the akwardness of letting someone go?  Anyway, I had my valid reasons so I was not intimidated at all.  She was a complete opposite person than she was the past 3 weeks, she went off saying she didn't feel anyone was approchable, that if she were the manager she wouldn't train anyone the way I did, that she felt it was unfair she was the only one working on our system. HELLO???? She didn't even get that, so how does she expect to be trained in another area when she kept making mistakes on that??? Anyway one of the last things she said was, "How am I supposed to know what to ask, when I never knew what I was doing?" WTF? UM YOU ASK!, "I dont understand this, please tell me again".  Like I said b4 the only time she spoke is when we asked her how she was doing and she had any ?s and everytime she said, "OK, Yes, I understand...No questions". 

Anyway, she's gone, we're short one person, but the girls are getting everything done much faster now that there's no one dragging the girls down.  Luckily our company is having a job fair tomorrow, so hopefully I'll find a good candidate then.  Thanks for everyone's advice.

-- Edited by BargainQueen at 19:33, 2006-04-04

That sounds like a horrible experience, but I bet you are relieved it is finally over with. You did the right thing. I'm sure you will find someone who is nice and hardworking at the job fair. Most people who attend job fairs are really motivated (and it is easy to distinguish them from the ones that aren't in a job fair environment). Look for someone who is out to impress with a good resume, nice suit, and intelligent questions that show he or she did some research.