I am having trouble with one of my employees who has worked for me for six years now. We have a lot of turnover in my business (dance studio owner) because we hire a lot of college kids so six years is good for us. Anyway, she's the type of person who thinks she knows everything and always has it worse in every case regardless of whether it has to do with work or not. For example, if my house burned down, her house, mother's house, and in-laws house would all burn down at the same time making my case irrelevant. Anyway, last year I let her do some office hours on top of her teaching hours to help displace some of my work. Anyway, it caused several problems. One, the business ended up being quite short on money all year and two now she has grown a big head in thinking that she has authority in the business to make decisions on her own. For example, one of my hired office managers has been coming in early and leaving early due to a family emergency. She chewed this office manager out the other day for leaving because I didn't tell her first that the manager was leaving, even though it was none of her business. I have trimmed her hours back this year (we are talking 10 hours a month, nothing big) and she is *****ing to all my other employees about it. The reason I did it is one I don't want to lose money again and two I feel like I need to reel her back in to get her under control. I don't want to lose her as she's very good at her teaching job but I need help in dealing with her “big head” and negativity before it costs me employees or customers. Any thoughts?

Good at her job but bad at people skills, in your business, is not being good at her job at all. Like most employees, they have strengths and weaknesses. You decide if you can accept her "as is" because no matter what you do or say, she will eventually revert right back to where she is now. Fish or cut bait isn't used in HR work but there you have it

Do you have a job description of the work she is being paid to perform? I would meet with her and do a performance evaluation while reviewing her job duties. Point out that her duties do not extend to management.

1. you can come down on her hard, stop all of her office hours, even if you have to hire a temp to come in some and do it.
2. let her know that her attitude is close to losing her the job and if she does not like working there to just leave.
** formal warning

If she continues, to be a bad employee, then fire her and move on. This type of employee is normally bad on business more so than pure turn over from having younger employees