What Managers Must Know — Managing Expectations

There was a time when I would often tell my colleagues, “If you finish your work, you can leave an hour early.” I believed that efficient workers, once they’ve met their performance targets, shouldn’t necessarily be chained to their desks. However, this approach taught me a small lesson.

One of my colleagues consistently left work promptly at 6 p.m. (our scheduled end-of-work was 7 p.m.). Since he always finished his tasks, I never confronted him about this. One day, he handed in his work one minute before leaving and I later discovered that he hadn’t completed the task according to requirements. When I asked him to correct it, he responded,

“Hey, I’m off the clock now!”

I was flabbergasted and upset. I felt that all my efforts and the benefits provided to him were taken for granted, with no respect or sense of responsibility in return.

Looking back, I had to admit that I was responsible for enabling this attitude.

Given Long Enough, Even The Best Benefits Become Routine

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that even the best benefits can eventually be taken for granted. Many new business owners, unhappy with past jobs, hope to create a friendly work environment. Unwittingly, they may foster a sense of entitlement among their employees, resulting in a situation where the business spends two dollars for a dollar’s worth of output. This generally stems from elevated expectations.

Repeated behaviors and conditions lead to the expectation that things will continue as they are. Any deviation from this expectation can cause surprise, sadness, and anger. In the story above, I allowed my colleague to develop the erroneous expectation of leaving work an hour early, making it a habit.

In short, if you provide benefits for too long, they can be taken for granted.

Always Tell the Consequences

So, how should we provide benefits without fostering wrong expectations?

Any benefits or rewards you establish should be conditional and not guaranteed to be available every time. They should be carefully evaluated and monitored. If you can’t supervise this process, it’s better not to offer the benefit at all.

People will appreciate what they sometimes have and sometimes don’t. That’s human nature.

For instance, I should have clarified the rule at the outset: “You can leave early once you’ve submitted your work and there are no problems,” and remind him of this rule regularly. However, the reminder should be through experience. If the work is not well done, he should stay until it is, so he sometimes leaves early and sometimes on time.

One might argue that it takes a lot of effort to do so.

A less cumbersome approach could be to allow employees to manage their own time in the following month if they complete their tasks each day of the current month and pass supervisor review. However, if they’re found wanting even once, they lose this privilege.

With this mechanism, employees are encouraged to self-manage and exercise restraint. The manager’s job is reduced to occasional inspections of work progress, particularly when the employee often leaves early.

Rules Should Be Challenging and Noticeable

One pitfall in management is letting employees build high expectations that aren’t fulfilled at work, which can accelerate employee turnover. However, you can’t keep top performers without expectations. The best balance is to make the rules challenging and meaningful.

The tale I shared at the beginning shows how an initially appealing benefit became routine and was taken for granted. It might not be that the employee was ungrateful, but rather that he forgot that the original end of work was 7 p.m. The original rule was too easy to reach (just complete the work to his own satisfaction) and negligible to him.

That’s why some businesses, especially in the service sector, hold ceremonies to award ‘Employee of the Month’ or ‘VIP of the Month’. These ceremonies serve to remind everyone that their actions, good or bad, are seen by the company.

Conclusion

The essence of setting rules is to align them with human nature, to manipulate human expectations, and guide people to achieve specific goals. If expectations are too high compared to the actual reward, it can lead to negative emotions and lowered morale. However, we shouldn’t always keep our employees’ expectations too low, as this will discourage effort from the start. The rules should be designed so that the actual reward is a bit higher than expected, surprising and motivating employees to continue striving.