Are You Holding Your Employees Back?

The Importance of Setting Clear Expectations in the Workplace 

Research indicates that a meek 30% of U.S. employees were engaged at work in 2024—the lowest level since 2013 80+ Employee Engagement Statistics HR Should Know in 2025 - SSR and, whether engaged or disengaged, only 45% of employees have a clear understanding of what is expected of them at work 20 Employee Engagement Statistics for 2025 - Cerkl Broadcast. Studies continue to show that the majority of workers genuinely want to contribute meaningfully to their organizations, leading to the question: if most people want to do good work, why are engagement levels at historic lows and performance consistently falling short of potential? My work has led me to believe that it has a lot to do with unclear employee expectations.

Top Reasons Leaders Do Not Set Clear Expectations:

• Lack of time

• Fear of setting the wrong expectations

• The opinion of: we are all adults, and we should know what’s expected of us

• Concern that the expectations may change

The Impact of Unclear Expectations

When expectations are not set, a few things can happen that trigger a domino effect for decreased productivity and disengagement. First, employees begin to set their own standards, forming processes and goals as they go, and this eventually creates silos, information hoarders, and inefficient systems of doing work. Leaders may also acknowledge poor work by reprimanding an employee in some way, unfortunately, when the expectation was not clear to begin with, this tactic only creates defensiveness. Another common misstep is when leaders share information as part of a general dialogue with teams, expecting them to figure out an unclear standard of work.

Employees eventually begin to resent their work and leadership team as they continue to feel like they are hitting a wall. It would be akin to a football team entering gameday without any prior practice: while all the players may be highly qualified and built for the job, they will not get very far without pre-planned plays or an understanding of each person’s role on the team and how they should interact with them for maximum efficiency. 

When a leader fails to create clear plays for their team, employees become defeated. In order to create a sense of security in a difficult work environment, some employees revert to negativity through storytelling: they find a shared camaraderie in others with similar challenges and through the exchange of company war stories, they grow into pockets of internal influencers that can dramatically bring down productivity & engagement for the entire team.

So how exactly do leaders effectively set clear expectations?

Clear expectations set the tone for a team and should be the standard of work for all employees. When done well, expectations create personal accountability, fairness & objectivity, and build engagement while driving high performance. Once the bar is set, the tendency will not be to drop below but to exceed the standard-> individuals will want to do better and add more meaning to what they already know works.

Let’s look at a step-by-step approach to setting clear expectations:

1. Identify the big picture: what is the ultimate goal that you want to achieve?

2. Assess roadblocks and challenges to your goal: what is currently getting in the way and what could get in the way down the road?

3. Identify specific behaviors required to achieve the goal: what behaviors would employees need to demonstrate on a daily basis to be effective and what behaviors may get in the way

4. Write down specific behavioral expectations that would be applicable to everyone on your team (different teams within a company will have different expectations based on their work)

5. Review the expectations with your team and work through them together: the goal will be to achieve agreement and buy-in 

6. Give everyone a copy of the expectations and request that they put them in a place where they will be visible on a daily basis

7. Hold people accountable to the expectations by plugging the language into daily meetings, coaching sessions, and feedback loops (where you either recognize or redirect an individual based on specific behaviors)

8. Build the expectations into your new hire onboarding program to set the tone of work on Day One.

Example behavioral expectation for a Director:

To provide clarity for your team by hosting weekly operational meetings where work updates and discussions are provided

Clear expectations not only maximize performance and create a cohesive work environment, but they also bring people together and build engagement. Expectation setting is not about micromanagement but quite the opposite, it gives people the opportunity to be their best within a work community. If expectations are unclear, employees spend most of their time trying to figure out how not to get in trouble or let their boss down, however, when that unease is removed, employees can focus on more important work, work that matters and makes them feel good about how they are showing up each day.