When an employee's primary job responsibilities are playing a secondary role, it is time to reset the priorities. In a word, you should sit down with her and clarify the job responsibilities, standards, and expectations. If her performance is truly falling short, it will be important to provide her with some feedback, along with guidance and direction to help bring it back up to par.
You should work out a plan to extricate her from some of the present projects that are pulling her away from her departmental responsibilities. You should also indicate that before she accepts a future assignment beyond the department, she will need your approval.
At the same time, the managers who are using her for such projects should be told that her level of participation is interfering with departmental operations. If such managers would like to have her on a committee or task force in the future, they will have to obtain your approval first.
It is often helpful and productive for employees to get involved in activities beyond their key job responsibilities. However, when the activities start to take over, the key step is to cut them back.
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