Many organizations struggle with accountability. Having your team take ownership of their responsibilities and maintain expectations is key to productivity and efficiency. This way, project managers can keep track of projects, streamline project processes, and avoid confusion.
Leaders of such organizations are responsible for instilling accountability in their employees. It is a crucial success factor and an essential leadership skill that should not be ignored. Employee accountability in a workplace means managing project workload according to set objectives, timelines, and targets. Contrary to finding someone to blame, workplace accountability is more about taking ownership and delivering on commitments.
Given that one out of two managers struggle with instilling accountability, there are ways to help you hold your entire team accountable for their work and the success of your business.
Set Expectations
Employee expectations communicate project goals and the desired impact of employees on the company. For expectations to be met, you must first express those expectations.
Setting your expectations in advance will minimize confusion and help boost employee success rate in achieving project goals. The Harvard Business Review ranks failure to set clear expectations as one of the top mistakes leaders continue to make.
To avoid this behavior trap, ensure that you put standard expectations in place that are consistent and easy to understand at every company level. For more unique projects, be sure to also set customized expectations for what you want out of your team and the project’s outcome.
Assign Roles
When assessing the feasibility and scope of your project, one of the primary considerations often is the strength of individual stakeholders. Use this to assign every aspect of your business’s workflow to specific team members.
This includes both who will be completing the role and who is responsible for ensuring the work gets done. While many people may be working on completing a specific task, it is a good idea to have one name accountable for its completion.
There are many remote work softwares and strategies available to help assign roles and responsibilities. Be sure to do your research and find the right software for your business. Compare Wrike pricing against other affordable options like monday.com to find the best fit.
Be Consistent
As mentioned, expectations should be standardized and consistent. So too, should processes. Automate as much as you can to help keep the processes consistent.
Being consistent helps eliminate confusion about roles and helps people quickly understand who is accountable for what. It further reduces frustrations, ensures output quality is consistent, and boosts predictability of project resource planning.
It would help if you also are consistent when expectations are not met. It’s not okay to let certain people go unaccountable while others are working hard to maintain accountability.
Connect and Communicate
While setting expectations and assigning responsibilities allow for dual-sided communication flow. Foster a connected environment so employees feel they can ask for help and guidance when needed. This setup also helps team members provide updates and feedback to one another more frequently.
Provide Feedback
Feedback is a crucial communication component that provides the necessary environment for employees to learn and reflect on their work performance. But you don’t want to instill fear in your team. So, it is important to be open and supportive when giving feedback.
Follow up with your team and let them know when you will be checking in to have any questions prepared that they may have for you. Meet with your team and let them know who is upholding their responsibilities and who is not.
Keep in mind that effective feedback features a sense of engagement and provides the recipient with relevant cues on what they need to do to perform their tasks better.
Lead By Example
If you want your team to take ownership of the business’s success and care about their work, you must show them how. If you make a mistake, take ownership and communicate how you will do better.
Leading by example often inspires trust and respect among teammates and provides clarity of purpose. The managers and supervisors within your team must also be capable of leading their teams by example.
Ready to Keep Your Team Accountable?
Businesses that fully embrace accountability and create a culture around it often have high employee morale and performance. A critical success factor gives employees the necessary sense of ownership needed to thrive and grow in their workplace. As much as your team depends on your leadership to achieve set expectations, their chances of achieving project goals are futile without accountability. Utilizing these steps will help you foster a culture of accountability in your business processes and help build a winning team for your projects.