Have you had a discussion with your employee where, theoretically, you and your employee agreed on a corrective course of action? Did your employee's behavior or work improve? If so, that's great. Everything's back on track.

I will mention that this step is the only one I may leave out of the escalation process, depending upon the situation. I'm putting it in here so you can choose to use it or not … and understand the reasons why you would or wouldn't use it.

If your employee's behavior did NOT improve, or improved briefly before sliding back into the negative behavior, then you need to take the next step in escalating your feedback. Don't wait.

When do you take the next step? If a week or two has gone by and you haven't noticed any improvement, then it's time for you to act. If only some improvement has been made, then it's time to have a follow-up meeting to discuss the partial improvement and find out how to complete the change.

If your employee improved and kept it up for a month or two but now is sliding back, it's time to meet again as soon as you realize the negative behavior is reappearing. Have a follow-up meeting to focus on the fact that the improved behavior must be a constant.

What's different about this meeting compared to the previous meeting when you discussed the issue and resolution? You're going to immediately follow up this meeting with a memo to the employee reiterating what you have discussed and what is expected of the employee.

When negative behavior is discussed, it is not unusual for a person to become distraught or uncomfortable in a way that truly interferes with their ability to listen and understand what is being said. Receiving a memo shortly after this meeting will now allow your employee to read about the issues and resolutions. The combination of hearing what you say and reading it will greatly increase the employee's chances of understanding the situation.

End this memo with something like, "If this memo does not accurately reflect what we discussed and agreed upon in our meeting, please discuss it with me as soon as possible."

So, why wouldn't I use this memo? In cases where you feel the employee is not making an effort to improve, I would probably just skip this and move on to the next escalation level.