Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Expectation Communication


Sometimes your employee may appear to be missing all of their goals.  However, they may simply not understand what is expected of them.  I would like to take a moment to discuss communicating expectations.  Please feel free to leave a comment about your own experiences with HR and manager expectations.

Expectation Communication

In order to properly manage your employees’ performance, you need to provide them with a clear set of expectations.  If the employees are not informed of your goals and requirements for their position, how can they be expected to do it right.  It is suggested that you provide expectations in three phases:  Job Description, New Employee, and Familiarized Employee.

Job Description - The first step in ensuring a worker is able to meet your expectations is to get the right person in the job.  Be sure to include any base level requirements such as “Must be able to lift 20 lbs” or “Must be available weekends” in the job description.

New Employee - After an employee has been hired, a set of early expectations should be provided to them.  Give them a list of things that they will be expected to complete.  Be sure to include orientation tasks such as “Complete benefits paperwork” and “Arrive to work on time” in the list of new employee expectations.  You will want to be careful not to overload and overwhelm the new employee.  Until they are on their feet, you should wait to give them the full list of their job’s requirements.

Familiarized Employee - After a period of 2 to 6 weeks, you should be able to provide the full list of job requirements to the employee.  At this point, they may not be adequately trained to perform the job completely yet, but at least they will know what their goal needs to be. 

Providing workers with their expectations will enable them to meet or exceed them.  Be sure to clearly communicate your expectations.  Do not be vague.  Put it on paper, then sit down and discuss it with them.


And remember all of you Human Resources professionals:  Be Human... Be a Resource...  Be a Resource for Humans.


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are by the author Trevor Stasik, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer or any other organization. Please note, this information is based on my understanding and is only to be used for informational and educational purposes. Do not take what I am writing as advice. Seek your own legal counsel and/or see a tax accountant before making business or personal decisions. The author of this post makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.

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