Setting expectations, providing ‘bigger picture’ information important
By Brian Kreissl
“The most important job of a manager is to provide context.”
That’s something an executive at a company I worked at said about performance management and the role of managers, and it has stuck with me over the years.
I have thought about that statement quite a bit, both in my capacity as an HR professional and as a people manager. While it’s a very simple, common sense type of statement, that quote is also quite profound. It says a lot about the role of managers — and how HR professionals should go about supporting them with respect to performance management policies, practices and programs.
What does ‘context’ actually mean?
To me, “context” – at least in this context – actually has at least two meanings. The most obvious meaning relates to setting expectations. In other words, what does acceptable performance actually look like?
Secondly, I also believe it relates to providing background information on organizational goals, objectives and priorities and why things are done in a certain way. I will examine both of these in turn.
Setting expectations for performance management
How is an employee supposed to know what’s expected of her if that person’s manager has not explained what is required to be successful in that particular job? And how is the employee going to know if she is performing successfully on the job if the manager hasn’t shown her what satisfactory performance looks like?
This sounds like a pretty fundamental managerial task. Nevertheless, it can be challenging, especially for more senior roles where ambiguity is built right into the role and the jobholder is expected to carve out a certain amount of scope and redefine the role and its priorities as things change and evolve.
In such a situation, performance expectations tend to be more strategic, high level and based on organizational goals, objectives and values. This is true especially where a business leader doesn’t quite understand all of the nuances of the role in question or what a day in the life of her direct report actually looks like.
It’s also true performance can be measured through individual goals and objectives and the exercise and attainment of desired competencies and behaviours. However, that’s a little different from setting expectations in the first place (although obviously the goal setting process does have something to do with expectation setting because managers usually at least have a say in drafting their direct reports’ goals).
Fortunately, for most jobs, it’s easier to define expectations. More junior roles typically have clearly defined accountabilities which are easier to document and quantify.
One way of doing this is to develop and communicate objective standards of performance, which eliminate some degree of subjectivity and make the performance management process fairer and more transparent. Performance standards can then be communicated through the establishment of targets, quotas, goals or standardized times for the completion of tasks. It can also make sense to document performance standards through the use of process documentation, standard operating procedures, manuals and job descriptions.
Providing organizational background information
Traditionally, employers didn’t believe in providing employees with information that was considered to be “above their pay grades.” While that’s still an unfortunate reality in some organizations — and certain organizational information by its very nature must be provided only on a “need to know” basis — most employers today recognize it’s important to provide employees with information on the “bigger picture.”
This has been shown to be important in driving enhanced employee engagement, since providing employees with “line of sight” to organizational goals and objectives helps them understand how their jobs fit into the overall strategy of the organization. People who have a definite sense of accomplishment in their roles have a higher degree of job satisfaction. Employees need to understand how their roles fit into the organization and how other departments and functions interrelate with one another.
It’s also important for employees to understand why things need to be done in a certain way, along with information relating to the organization’s history and its vision, mission and values. However, that can be a double-edged sword where the original rationale behind certain tasks or methodologies has been lost and things are being done simply because “we’ve always done it that way.”
Above all, however, managers need to cascade organizational goals and objectives. They also need to share organizational and departmental information with their direct reports, provide direction and be able to answer questions relating to the job.
Brian Kreissl is the managing editor of Consult Carswell. He can be reached at [email protected]. For more information, visit www.consultcarswell.com.
