Employee Expectations Need to be Clear

In my last Insight, I talked about some common mistakes employers make regarding employee expectations. 

A lot of the assistance I provide to companies is helping them develop job descriptions for their staff. Well-written job descriptions are the easiest way to communicate expectations to employees. 

Employee handbooks are another area where I often provide assistance to companies. And employee handbooks are also another great way to communicate expectations to employees. 

These are two of the most common ways to communicate what your expectations are to your employees. 

The results you get, however, depend entirely on how well the job descriptions are written and how thorough the employee handbook is. 

For example, if a manager wants to issue an employee counseling document, but if the company doesn’t have a written job description for this employee’s position, the counseling document is not as effective because the employee can always argue that his/her job was not clearly communicated to him/her. 

If, however, you have a job description to go with the counseling document that spells out the exact expectations from the employee for his/her position, the counseling memo reinforces the expectations already identified in the job description. 

Regarding employee handbooks, sometimes managers are unclear about what the company’s actual policies are because there is no handbook for managers to refer to. When this happens, managers may end up providing misleading information to employees. Each manager may also have their own ideas of what the company’s policies ought to be. As a result, each manager uses their own interpretation when they are communicating policies to employees, and employees from one department end up having a different set of expectations than employees in another department. 

This can cause a lot of problems because expectations are not clear and often become confusing. 

Once you develop an employee handbook that is clear and easy to understand, managers will be able to better communicate to employees what the policies are. That way, employees always know what’s expected of them. 

Companies really need to focus on creating clear, easy-to-understand expectations and then communicate these expectations to employees in a way that allows them to know exactly what is required of them. 

Well-written job descriptions and employee handbooks will help put your company on this path.

There are two common ways you can communicate your expectations to your employees.