How To Manage Underperforming Team Members?

Recently I have to let go an underperforming team member. In the exit interview, her feedback was being treated as 'ex-marketing team' due to the change of management. To provide you with more background, I was hired to replace the ex-Head of Marketing and this team member was hired by this ex-Head of Marketing. In the last two years, I have been paying attention to all team members who were hired by the ex-Head of Marketing. In the first 90 days, I observed and made them feel that I were not here to replace all/some of them with my preferred ex-team members.

For some reasons, this team member had been working closely with our C-level, therefore, I had been paying much higher attention. At the same time, she had been asking for promotion and salary increment in six months after I joined this company. For some urgent tasks that we could not reach her, my other team members/I had to take up her tasks which were very frustrating for other team members.

If you were me, what would you do to convince her to complete her tasks on time and attend the meetings on time?

My company has quarterly performance reviews and I had been reminding her what I had observed. The most frustrating thing was she had been focusing on herself and asking about the promotion and salary increment. To be honest, I didn't know how to propose to our C-level and HR to increase her salary without improvement.

To increase her stickiness, I arranged team lunches and team-building activities. It seems that she came for the food and activities instead of blending herself into the team or even treating each of us as her team members.

In the last two months, her problems became more serious and I had to propose to HR and C-level to replace her. At the end, the HR told me that she felt like being leftover and outsider in our team.

I asked the other three team members who were hired by the ex-Head of Marketing and they have the opposite comment. I promoted two out of three of them because they have been performing and exceeding our company targets in terms of lead generations and developing high quality content to drive over thousands of new followers to our social media platforms. They thanked me to nurture them and bring them to the next level for their career prospect.

If you were me, how long would you make the decision to let go the underperforming team members? Alternatively, how would you motivate your team members who feel that they are outsiders? How would you blend her into your team again?