Ontario Municipal Human Resources Association

Let’s start with a little bit of common sense. Most people in any workplace want to be well thought of. They want to do a good job. Very few people wake up in the morning, stretch, pour themselves a coffee, and say, “Time to go to work and screw up.”

For this reason, when employees’ performance is subpar, the first question we should be whether they understand the performance expected of them. After all, the strongest determinant of the performance you get from your team is the performance you ask for!

There is an art to asking for the performance you want. When working with managers, I love to ask, “Tell me what you’re looking for from your team.” The answers are predictable. After a moment of thought, the managers say things like, “I want the team members to be more proactive,” or “I want my team to be customer focused.”

When we discuss performance expectations, people often use this weird HR-speak. They describe expectations with abstract adjectives – agile, resilient, proactive. That’s when I change the question. Now I ask the managers to describe what it will look and sound like when their teams meet performance expectations. If observing them, what will I see or hear?

Performance expectations must be expressed in concrete language. Because if you express the performance you want with vague descriptors, expect employees not to recognize the gaps between current performance and expected performance. Expect replies such as, “I’m already proactive” or “I’m already customer focused.” But once you begin to express expectations by describing in concrete terms what you want to see in the workplace, performance gaps are immediately understood. For example, if you say you want to see team members help one another with difficult situations, people who see colleagues struggling with a problem are more likely to assist.

Remember, too, that performance expectations should be expressed in positive terms. Talk about what you want, not about what you don’t want. It’s common for managers to miss this point. They say, for example, “I don’t want to see a messy workplace” or “I don’t want to see any unsafe acts.” These statements are examples of what I call the “dead guy principle” – if a dead guy can do it, it’s not performance! Can a dead guy avoid leaving a messy workplace or avoid committing unsafe acts? Pretty much guaranteed.

Expressing performance expectations in positive terms also sets a higher bar. If you tell someone you don’t want to see a messy workplace, they are likely to clean up just enough to avoid it being labelled as messy. But if you say you want all the tools stored neatly and the floor swept at the end of each job, that employee will likely go further to give you the performance you asked for.

Lastly, another useful thing to remember is that you don’t have to do everything with words. You can model the performance expectations.

One of the most effective leaders I ever worked with was named Trevor, who was the general manager of a major manufacturing facility. He recognized that employees always watch their bosses carefully. Several times a day, he walked through the workplace and let employees see what he was interested in. One example stands out. The operation had problems with a new plastic wrap that packaged their products. Some shipments were rejected because the end seal popped open, so the heat settings on the packaging equipment were adjusted to correct the problem. Trevor then instructed the machine operators that he wanted them to double-check the end seal. But when Trevor went through the workplace, rather than repeatedly asking machine operators if they were checking properly, he would ask them about their weekend or chat about sports or family. He then would casually saunter down to the packaging end of the production line and pick up a couple of samples of product. He would spend a few seconds examining the seal on the plastic wrap. Then he would place the product back on the line and continue his walk. After doing this for two or three days, the machine operators began interrupting the casual conversation to tell Trevor that they had been checking the product thoroughly and there were no faulty end seals.

The performance expectation had been set without an unnecessary word being spoken!

Written by: George Raine