There are four key areas of responsibilities that every employee needs to assume to perform at their best. Employees need to understand this, and it needs to be communicated by management.
It is the manager’s responsibility to make sure employees understand these responsibilities and are properly trained to assume them.
The four areas are
- Performing tasks to define standards
- Teamwork
- Initiative
- Communication with management
Performing tasks to standards
Employees need to know what tasks they are expected to perform and to what standards. This means the quantities, the due dates, and the levels of quality. This is especially important for the top 20% of tasks that the employee needs to do.
The manager is responsible to make sure this is clear and to provide feedback on a regular basis. The employee needs to clarify their understanding and if unclear, approach the manager to discuss and come to agreement.
Teamwork
Today especially teamwork is an essential responsibility of each employee. This means developing the skills to collaborate with others to get the job done and achieve departmental goals.
The manager’s responsibility is to train and coach team members on working within a team. The manager must be familiar with the skills needed for teamwork and how to coach employees on developing those skills.
Each team member needs to be aware of the skills required of them for teamwork and look for ways to develop those skills whether it’s within the resources provided by the employer or from outside.
Initiative
Taking initiative is an important aspect of performance. People who take initiative regularly come up with ways to improve the way their work is done and find solutions to problems that impede productivity.
The manager needs to communicate that initiative is an important responsibility of each team member and coach team members according to their skill level and style of work. Some people are more prone to taking initiative as there is an element of risk involved, while others may not enjoy change and taking risk. But everyone can learn to improve themselves in taking initiative to make improvements.
Communicating with management
Team members need to be able to communicate their ideas to management concisely. The more people take initiative and have ideas for improvement, the better they need to be to state their case as often these ideas or improvements need management approval.
Writing out a proposal on one page is a good way for management to understand what’s involved and the benefits so they can take a good decision to support the recommendation. To summarize, employees need to understand that their responsibilities for performance go beyond just doing the tasks. And managers need to understand that their role is to make sure employees know this and to train and coach them on those responsibilities.