I don’t work for a company that I can provide referrals (unless you’re looking for an on-site entry level job) so instead, I’d love to offer you strong ladies support from an HR perspective. AMA I’ll get to every single scenario or question. Let me help elevate your success!

Not to steal OP thread, but it probably means that you were too tactical explaining your approach to management. You didn’t start with the big picture.
If you give me a question they asked about management and your answer I can give you more details.

You’re the very best. Thank you so much for helping!! 💕

Hi AM1. I’m sorry for such a frustrating situation, the opinion of Director 1 has a lot of very true and good information for your consideration. My drop was going to be that it’s possible your colleague may be Neurodivergent, but unless you are her manager or HR, or they openly express this to accommodate her, you wouldn’t know and I would refrain from making biased comments and assumptions. I like to teach that every statement should have parameters in order for employees and executives to bring a problem to me. You’re asking what’s next, what can we do to collaborate with this person or how is management making the decision to keep them or not?

There’s a management, an HR, and a legal consideration. I’m going to pull out/filter your complaints and address them:

1. The employee holds people hostage with unsolicited conversations. How do you professionally tell someone that they should be more respectful of others’ time resources?
Name, I would like to set up a X minute 1:1 with you to discuss some of your workplace behaviors that have interfered with (meeting goals, building trust, performance, team collaboration, etc). When do you have the capacity to meet with me? I understand you may have questions about this meeting but we can cover everything during our 1:1 time. What works for you?
At meeting: I apologize as your manager for not bringing this up sooner, because your success is important to me, and it’s appropriate to bring this up now because it’s such a serious and critical aspect of your overall contribution to the department. I am starting with an apology because as your manager I should have pointed out these incidents as they occurred but I was guilty of avoiding the confrontation and hoping it would go away. I’ll make a commitment to bring these matters to your attention in the future but for now, my message is to point out some concerns with your workplace behavior that are interfering with (your ability/others ability) to meet company expectations.

On occasion it appears that you can come across to others as overly invasive be in your topics and unable to respect your coworkers time due to excessive socialization. Perception is reality unless proven otherwise. Even if you don’t realize it, you may be creating a perception that is offensive, confrontational to others. From this point forward you’ll need to hold yourself accountable for your own perception management. You need to become sensitive to how you’re coming across to others at all times. (I don’t doubt your sincerity) but I have to take other peoples concerns seriously.

What methods or actions can you take to improve this perception? As your manager, what support do you need from me?

Potential recommendations, she learns to schedule 1:1s with team members to catch up, use slack to minimize verbal, or use 10 minutes in every team meeting for socializing.

1. She can’t take criticism and rejection well, now what?
How do you want me to provide feedback? I noticed you do not take criticism and rejection well. How can I ease this information for you? Understand that now I’ve shared the problem with you, and we have worked together to set a measurable standard to improve or need to improve this standard, and are given a reasonable time to work on this, these are the consequences of inaction. Are you aware and understanding that you must do this, however this looks like for you?

1. Our team walks on eggshells and can’t be as productive because of her needs and we can’t be straightforward because we don’t want to hurt her feelings. Now what?
Get over it. Address it. This is work. You can be thoughtful and respectful while telling the truth. Your disservice is not telling her. You are not responsible for her feelings. You are responsible for the facts and filtering emotions out.

1. She’s a negative Nancy and it interferes with collaboration and efficiency, now what?

We all communicate differently. Are you aware when you communicate that it’s pessimistic and puts others down? This is important to be aware of because when others are put down, they burn out, feel defeated, have difficultly working with you. This means work takes longer to complete, your views may be overlooked when your diverse perspective could benefit the team, and others are hurt by your words. Remember you are responsible for perception management.

1. The employee is middle aged and will never change her habits, now what?
It’s her job to do her job and perform to meet company expectations. If she doesn’t, tell her, if you’re padding performance reviews, stop it. If she’s meeting objectives, age has nothing to do with growth. Desire has to do with growth.

1. She runs above and around me and complains to clients when I give criticism, now what?

Do you know what our company standards are for complaints? Unless it relates to harassment or discrimination, I’m your manager and we need to discuss our concerns and problems together. We can always have a third party witness if that makes you feel more comfortable, but at the end of the day, I’m here to support, lead, and empower my team, and I can’t do that when you don’t work with me. I also want to make it very clear that the next time you complain to a client about work, your peers, or our practices, you will be documented. This is not 5 star service and is extremely inappropriate. These are our clients whom we provide and service, they are not our friends and they do not contribute to our management practices, policies, and procedures. Are you able to separate your work behaviors with your client management?

1. We have a client that prefers working with this employee so we are worried about losing the account if we let her go. Now what?
I’m not sure how your operations works but you can either add another manager to the next few meetings or require her to CC you for introductions and do a nice hello. Or when you cross that bridge you can worry about it. If you lose a client who is won over by an employee that is causing distruptiom, that’s not a reason to allow the behavior to continue, ever. She is an employee, not the owner.