Home » Workplace Culture » 6 Ways To Set Clear Expectations With Your Team

In today’s blog, I’ll be giving you 6 ways that you can set clear expectations with your team.

Why is it important to set clear expectations with your team?

  • there will be no confusion
  • they will meet their deadlines
  • They’ll perform well
  • You” get the results that you are looking for
  • Your team will be engaged.

Setting clear expectations is like providing a compass in the professional journey. It ensures that everyone is heading in the right direction, working towards common goals, and contributing effectively to the success of the team and the organisation. It’s the cornerstone of effective leadership and teamwork.

Let’s discuss 6 ways that you can set clear expectations with your team

1. Realistic and obtainable

If you are setting expectations with your team, whether that is for a new project, or for a new expectation that the organisation has brought, it needs to be realistic and obtainable. For an expectation to be realistic, it means that your team need to be able to obtain it. 

For example: You have an upcoming project. You project that it will take 450 hours to complete this project. You have 5 staff members. If you divide the time equally (which in reality won’t be that way, but we’ll use it for the sake of this example). Each person will have 90 hours on the project. You then let everyone know that they only have 4 days to complete their 90 hours. Seeing as there are only 96 hours in 4 days, they’ll only have 6 hours left to sleep and spend on other things. So not realistic at all. But what you could do instead is provide additional resources, like adding extra people to the project to reduce the number of hours for each person on the project. 

2. Clear objectives linked to key results

People must understand what success will look like, and provide context and further clarity where required. When you are setting the expectations for the very first time, make sure it is laid out clearly and linked to a result that is clear to the team. 

For example: If your objective is to launch a new product range, the key result would be to create the product, then launch the product by a certain date, updating the website and letting your customers know about the new product range and making it available for purchase. What will success look like? The product is launched and available for purchase on the website. What will success look like for your IT team – updating the website? Will will success look like for your marketing team – emailing clients, running ads etc. and getting a 10% conversation rate? Every single department must know what their key results are and what success will look like for them. 

3. Measurable

To make something measurable, it needs to be linked to metrics. There should be a tangible goal/metric that your team can aim to reach. What are the metrics of this project?

For example: Your marketing team has the goal of creating short-form content on social media platforms to gain leads. At the moment, however, there are no metrics. So let’s fix that. Your marketing team is going to create 10 short-form content, which they are going to post on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok and the goal is to gain 100 leads in 24 hours. Now it is measurable. Did we meet those metrics in 24 hours? This expectation or goal was extremely explicit, and it was made very clear.

Each department should a measurable objectives and goals to strive towards. 

4. Accountability & Support

You should also communicate with your team how you are going to keep them accountable and what support you will offer. 

For example: You let your team know that in 24 hours there will be another meeting on Zoom to see what progress has been made or to discuss the result for example of the above-mentioned marketing plan. Or for example, you let your team know that you’ll meet in 1 week on Wednesday at 10 am and that everyone should bring their result so that you can celebrate successes together and those who have not succeeded yet, should reflect on what happened, why they didn’t meet their goals and what are they going to do to solve this problem. 

Also, let them know where they can go for support during the project. Let them know who the support people are and who they should go to for what support. 

5. Deadlines and timeframes

You must let your team members know, whether they are seasoned or brand new, what time frames and deadlines they are working with. There is nothing worse than coming into a new team and not knowing what timeframes or deadlines you are working with. 

For example: If there is a procedure that should only take an hour, it should be communicated, otherwise, it is a massive waste of time and resources if someone takes 2 hours to complete it. 

Sometimes we just assume that people know, we think it is common sense, but we can’t afford to think that way when it comes to business. We need to make sure that we communicate clearly and not leave anything up for assumption. 

6. Communicated & Documented

Lastly, ensure that you follow up all verbal communication with a written format, whether that be via email, minutes of the meeting or a document. Ensure that you provide this to your team ASAP after the verbal communication. If your team feels unsure, they can refer to the written version to eliminate confusion.

What’s Next?

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