In business, setting expectations is very important. Clear expectations insure that everyone knows exactly what they’re supposed to do and they are on the same page. Without clear expectations, it is left up to the imagination of everyone and there are no boundaries. All employees should have their expectations set so they know exactly what is expected of them. When there are expectations it makes it easy to hold people accountable because if there are none then it is impossible to keep people accountable for something you never told them they should be doing. Also, clear expectations insured that people don’t step on each others toes and everyone knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing. This means that if one person is assigned a task someone else won’t be doing it it will just be that one person. I have found that people want to know what they’re supposed to be doing they want clear expectations. Sometimes when expectations aren’t clear the employee will run wild and do a million things that you don’t want them doing. Has the company evolved so do expectations so it is important that you keep a job responsibilities list so each employee knows what the expectations are of their roles. There can also be a growth chart so they know what the expectations are if they grow into another position and what the pay rates will be in each corresponding position. They know exactly what they have to do to get a raise.
Being stern and straightforward as important as a manager. The biggest part of setting expectations is the ability to hold people accountable. Holding employees accountable for what they are supposed to do is super important to keep everything running tight and efficiently. I have any expectations clearly said, you can spring the employee aside and say it is your responsibility to do this. Why has this not been done? It is also very important in reviews to be able to use a measurable set of expectations and how they are performing to each expectation.
What I have learned is that sometimes in the beginning it is hard to be clear with the expectations because you’re not sure what the expectations are supposed to be for any given position. In this case, you will learn the hard way when the employee runs rampant and they are out of control. Once this happens, the only options are to either set these new expectations and forced the employee to cooperate and to the new expectations, or, unfortunately usually what happens is the employee does not want to conform so they quit. The good thing about this however is that now you can hire a new employee and you have clear expectations set for them.
