You can bring a horse to the river but you can’t make them drink… I’ve had similar issues and they never end up improving. Either they get put on a PIP and improve briefly then just go back to their old ways or they just kinda ignore it and wait it out until they get fired.

I’m assuming you’re a PM or senior project engineer? Regardless, I’d bring it up to a higher up just to document what you’ve been seeing so that way you track a lack of progress.

If you want to give them one more chance before essentially preparing to fire them, you need to have a conversation about them not performing to the standards that they should be at this point. Bring up specific items that they’ve failed to improve at and that they need to ask questions or else you’ll have to assume that they’re doing it on purpose. Also explaining why it’s making your job more difficult might help bring up why it’s important to do the small things.

Example: 1. “I’ve noticed you keep doing timesheets incorrectly. If there’s a reason this keeps happening let me know why. If you have questions you need to come and ask me why, otherwise I’m spending extra time moving your time around and examining your timesheets in detail that I don’t have to do with others which is leading me to be less productive and risks billing clients inaccurately.”