Employers Aren’t the Only People with Expectations

The first big job of a person’s career is one of those special moments in life that can’t be beat, but if there is one thing that can do so, it’s a bigger and better opportunity elsewhere. The cold, hard realization that your employees won’t be sticking around forever might be hard to accept, but it’s one that you must consider. In order to keep your current workforce satisfied, you will need to manage your expectations, as well as managing theirs.

What Your Employees Expect from You

Be sure to remember that while your employees gain capital from working with your business, they are also providing you with skills that you need to meet your organizational goals. As such, you should make sure that you live up to some of their more reasonable expectations of you. Here are some examples:

Efficient Processes

There will always be work to get done in the office, but it is inevitable that other critical tasks will pop up from time-to-time. It’s up to you to make sure your employees are provided with adequate time and resources to fulfill their responsibilities. This includes trying to eliminate any potential bottlenecks and roadblocks. If your employees find themselves revisiting the same tasks over and over, they might get frustrated--especially if the issue is one that could have been prevented.

To this end, you can leverage automation and other processes that make your employees’ jobs as easy to handle as possible. After all, the less time an employee spends on repeating work that’s already been done, the more they are freed up to make you more money. Furthermore, even if there isn’t an opportunity to increase revenue, they can then spend any time saved on other tasks, allowing them to feel more engaged and be much more productive.

Manageable Workloads

Your employees can only do so much in their workday. Therefore, if your employees only work for eight hours a day, you shouldn’t be expecting ten hours of work out of them. If you do, they could become frustrated, leading to decreased quality of work and lower employee satisfaction. A resource management solution can help you prevent this from happening. These typically offer timesheet capabilities as well, ensuring that the correct amount of time is being allocated to tasks.

Reasonable Requirements and Deadlines

Be sure to consider how your processes will affect the timeline of projects and tasks, which again contributes to the conversation of whether or not you’re expecting too much of your employees during their allotted time. If you throw unreasonable deadlines at them, they will become overwhelmed, contributing to burnout or worse. As is the case with the above situations, a resource management solution will help your team stay on task, as well as provide you with an accurate gauge of how long certain tasks take to complete. This gives your business a better way to address estimates and timelines in the future.

Support from Management

Your staff expects you to be there to support them in their work. More often than not, employees want to do their jobs effectively, but sometimes deal with various factors that may not make this entirely possible. When they fail to accomplish their duties, they will need someone there to guide them so they learn what went wrong, why, and how to fix it. This kind of communication will give your employees the kind of positive feedback they need to further improve their skills, even when they fail to meet expectations. It’s a type of constructive criticism that your employees will appreciate.

What Happens If these Expectations Aren’t Met?

If you don’t meet your employees’ expectations, you can expect some potentially serious effects to present themselves. More often than not, these problems will have a negative impact on your organization’s work, hurting its operational effectiveness. Here are some examples:

Decreased Morale and Respect

Going to a job where you are routinely set up for failure can be exhausting, and it is sure to have an impact on morale. This is especially the case for employees who try to emphasize what must be improved, only to have these recommendations ignored. It can lead to lost respect as well, which can fester and create further issues down the line.

Lost Motivation and a Reduction of Work Quality

If workers are unmotivated and don’t see the point to their work, it will reflect in their work quality. You can’t expect workers to continually produce results if everything they do is working against them. You might encounter situations where employees would rather just call in than be routinely subjected to a job they aren’t motivated to fulfill.

Missed Deadlines and Out of Control Costs

If workers can’t get their work done due to low motivation, it will almost certainly reflect in the missed deadlines and costs associated with them. It could significantly impact the amount of money spent to complete a project. The worst part is that this is so easy to prevent. All you have to do is listen to your employees’ feedback and implement a resource management solution. If you see budgets that are routinely stretched too far, you know that perhaps you should reconsider the expectations you have set for these resources.

Increased Absenteeism and Turnover

Stress impacts an individual’s health, and it will affect just about all parts of someone’s life--the workplace notwithstanding. If you are expecting too much of your employees and forcing them to get work done without the resources they need to effectively do their duties, you’ll see increased employee absence, either due to legitimate illness or a propensity for taking “mental health days”. If one employee calls in, consider that the rest of the team has to pick up the slack, placing further pressure on them. In a worst-case scenario, employees might get fed up and resign, creating a high turnover rate that can influence your organization’s ability to function the way you need it to. Remember, it costs more to replace an employee than it does to retain your current staff.

Horne & Benik can equip your organization with a resource management solution that’s designed to inform management and employees about the expectations placed on both of their shoulders. To learn more about how your business can benefit from this solution, reach out to us at (603) 499-4400.