“Clarity affords focus” Thomas Leonard
I’ve written about communication previously and the lean towards technology as the primary tool of choice. What this appears to be leading to is a complete lack of clarity for our employees about their measure of success. Whether technology can be to blame for this is unclear and I could be being completely unfair! However, we do have a ‘clear as mud’ problem in small and medium business.
Onboarding a new starter can be time consuming. Time and work pressures don’t cease just because we have a new starter. The pressures remain. In many situations the new comer can become victim to this and the old ‘learn as you go, show some initiative’ comes into play.
Not a fair game plan for them or the business.
We have a duty of care to our employees as their employer and leader to provide clarity around what is expected of them and be clear on the boundaries they can operate within. We also need to ensure they are receiving adequate feedback on their performance to not only ensure they can do the job but to instil confidence in them enabling them to perform even better.
Some questions for you:
- Does your employee know what they have to do?
- Does your employee know what their measure of success is?
- How will you know when your employee is successful?
- How will they know how to be successful and exceed your expectations?
- Do they know where to focus?
Simply having expectations of increasing sales, a better performing team or better client service are not measurable or succinct expectations. They are broad and open to interpretation. For example, if your employee increases sales by one, they have increased sales. Will that meet your expectation, probably not? Do you consider that successful? Probably not. Will they? If pushed – they have increased sales!
Business is too busy and chaotic to have to interpret expectations and the onboarding process is a costly one. Make it work for you by providing crystal clear expectation of your employees. Empower your existing team by ensuring they understand how to be successful and how to exceed their expectations. Otherwise you’ll have a workforce that will just plod along and without doubt you could have some problems come performance review time.
Allow your employee the power to focus on the key things that matter for them and in turn for the business. If their line of focus is too broad, they will not achieve to the best of their ability. Clarity provides focus.
If this is something you struggle with seek some help. It will be the best investment you have made and will make a positive difference to your business and your team. We are here to help you.