Life would be a whole lot easier if everyone did what they were supposed to do on time, without making any mistakes, and without needing any reminders. Of course, life doesn’t work that way.
In reality, everyone misses a deadline, everyone makes mistakes, and everyone benefits from reminders. As a supervisor, it is essential that you anticipate this and work with staff to help them be as successful as possible.
To do this, it requires you to fight against some of your natural instincts, primarily, jumping to conclusions and jumping to solutions.
In the busyness of work, we rarely have sufficient time to manage the many things we need to manage in the most effective way possible, so we often settle for efficient. Once we know there is a problem, we try to fix it, even if there is a lack of understanding of the cause, and the solution doesn’t really work.
To actually fix the issue and support your staff while doing it, you need to first figure out why the issue is happening. This sounds intuitive enough, but in our haste to move onto the next thing, it is often overlooked.
When staff does not meet expectations, it is generally due to one of five main reasons:
1) They didn’t know about the expectation.
2) They didn’t understand the expectation.
3) They didn’t have the resources (including time and training) to fulfill the expectation.
4) They didn’t have the capacity to fulfill the expectation.
5) They didn’t care about the expectation.
Figuring out why something happens is necessary to figure out how to address it. This will both address the current issue and help you better get ahead of the next one.
The good thing is, you do not have to figure this out on your own. To get to the cause of the issue, and understand why expectations were not met, you need to talk directly with your staff to hear it from them.
You will undoubtedly notice number 5, which states that the reason expectations were not met was that staff simply did not care. This certainly happens, but be cautious about jumping to this conclusion, which unfortunately is all too easy to do (believe me). Although there are times that staff simply do not care, in the majority of cases, there is another reason that expectations were not met.
Once you figure out the cause, then you can work with your staff to figure out a solution. If they didn’t know about the expectation, determine what went wrong. Was it you? Was it them? Was it a little bit of both? Then agree on how to better communicate expectations going forward.
If they didn’t understand the expectation, how could you have been more clear? What could they have done to get clarity? How can you both improve on this in the future so that expectations are clear for both of you?
If they don’t have the resources they need to meet the expectation, determine what resources they need and then decide if that is feasible or even possible. If so, provide what they need. If not, discuss how to make it happen with the current available resources or perhaps pass the task onto someone else or can do it with the resources that currently exist.
If they do not have the capability to meet the expectation, would extra training and support help? If not, can you delegate the task to someone else? Is the current person simply not a fit for the position or even the organization?
Finally, if the staff simply does not care about meeting expectations, what can you do? There is an easy argument to be made that there is nothing you can do and that you should not invest your time in someone who does not care. Unfortunately, there are logistical realities that sometimes prevent us from letting someone go even if they should be let go, so we are forced to do the best we can within a circumstance that is set up to fail. You can only do what you are able to do, so if you do not have the authority to let someone go, do not continue to invest time in helping someone grow who is committed to not doing so.
The next time your staff misses a deadline or makes a mistake, resist the urge to assume why and to fix it on your own without first understanding what is going on. Start by simply asking your staff why expectations were not met and then work with them to address the issue. Then put practices in place that will help prevent similar issues from happening again. When they inevitably do, keep at it. It will never be perfect, but as long as you are continually making progress, you will know that you are headed in the right direction.
