As a manager how do I deal with a gaslighting employee

I work in a restaurant inside of a hotel, I have just started my position a month ago I have an employee who has been with us for 10 years. She constantly is rude to the staff and then plays victims denying everything and swearing up and down she’s being bullied and she didn’t do whatever it is they’re accusing her of. She has a soft spoken facade and will often be “sick” “hurt” something on some part of her body is in unimaginable pain. I send her home she suddenly feels better. I’ve been keeping an eye out for her observing when it’s not obvious I’m paying attention and she is definitely instigating situations and then playing victim. Recently I had a staff explaining that we need to do a better job with our customer connections and mentioning a few things that are falling though the cracks. She smugly raised her hand and said that EVERYTHING is my fault for not telling everyone what to do. Naively I told her in a professional matter that we both can see when there’s a line and when guest are waiting at the register I don’t need to tell her to take their order she knows their order needs to be taken. This was not the correct response as she was very angry and began being dismissive to everything else that was said. I ignored her and continued talking to my staff afterwards everyone went back to work and I went to my office to document everything that had happened in order to talk to her about it later once she’d calmed down a bit. On the floor she was quiet I sent her on break she didn’t respond she left. About 2 hours later I’m sitting in my desk when my boss informs me we need to talk. Fearful I went to her office expecting to be berated for what happened in my meeting, imagine my shock when my boss told me she had a negative experience with the same employee my boss told her there was a man that had been waiting in line and that she should take his order. The employee told my boss no that her position was not the register she was on the bar she will ONLY be making drinks. Me and my boss decided to speak with this employee together and to make a long story short she tried her best to gaslight us, she swore up and down she never said no, she swore up and down she never said any of the things we brought up, swore that it was a misunderstanding, swore that we mustve been remembering it incorrectly. How do I deal with this when I’m alone with her? How do I deal with this correctly

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Have a talk with her and go over her job duties, code of conduct, etc. Record everything and get other staff's testimony if they are witnesses to an incident etc. provide warnings and disciplinary action. If things dont improve with her, she must be fired.

I would probably just shut it down eventually, just act so done w her shit like come on lady..we both know. Don’t act dumb, you sound very calm when you’ve talked to her so that’s good. Not a lot you can do besides try to get her to cut the act, and let her go if she doesn’t try to progress

Say what you need to and tell her that’s the end of it. You need her to hear you but you’re really not looking for an explanation. Then, “next time …” thank you. And walk away.

It sounds harsh but any little bit of flexibility or understanding will likely lead to excuses and around and around it goes

Frankly at this point I would just let her go. She isn’t making the experience for your staff or the customers a good one

Have your boss with you anytime you are reviewing feedback with this employee. Your boss or another witness can take notes. If written feedback is delivered, have the employee sign it. Document observed instances of poor behaviors to establish the already known patterns in writing. In your documentation, have an expectation for the employee going forward, like greeting customers and taking orders. The next time you see the employee not doing what they committed to, put it in writing again, citing the previous conversation. I would cite poor work ethic. Usually when someone signs on as an employee, they agree to a job description. If the job description had any part like “other job duties as delegated” or something along those lines, you can also cite that they are supposed to take customer orders per their job description.

It doesn't matter if she disagrees. It's not a negotiation. It's not a fucking democracy. YOU decide. You are the boss. So what if she denies it and says you are remembering wrong. You know you are remembering right. You need to be issuing a written warning each time she does anything. Whatever your policy says about disciplinary action before termination, get that train running. Clear instructions at the start of shift as to what her duties are, so she cannot claim it's not her job to do XYZ.

She’s still mean to the other employees they’ve come to me and I’ve taken notes and talked to her and then she cries. I have a meeting with HR today to talk about moving forward because she went to them claiming I’m also bullying her

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