7 Questions - How do you create clarity in your job and those of your employees?

The importance of a good employee-manager relationship

The manager-employee relationships are vital for organisational effectiveness and efficiency.

This article covers the most basic structures in the relationship between an employee and the manager
by describing 7 questions for an employee regarding his/her job, the purpose, accountabilities,
performance measurement and feed-back, managerial support and motivation/reward:

Q1 Why is what I do important? Q2 What am I accountable for? Q3 How is my performance

measured? Q4 How am I performing? Q5 What am I doing to improve my performance? Q6 What
support do I need from my manager to improve my performance? Q7 What is in it for me, if I do great,
good, average or below expectations?

Why is this relevant and important?

Despite it being basic I have experienced over and again that it does not take place and often it is only
performed half-heartedly and this gives rise to several challenges.

Firstly, that the employee leaves the company due to a poor relationship with the immediate manager.
Several studies show that the most often quoted reason for leaving a position is the relationship with
the immediate manager.
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Secondly, the performance or output from the employee is not optimal compared to what it should be.

Thirdly, a poor or less optimally performing employee has a less than optimal effect on the people and
processes in the company.

Fourth, you can probably add to the list yourself, but the above mentioned three should be adequate
cause for action.

The above outcome is bad for the company as well as the employee, hence worthwhile to ensure that
employees and managers jointly have a good understanding of the job and their respective
responsibilities this regard

The below outline is compiled of what I have picked up over the years from inspiring people, leaders I
have come across and especially some bright HR people in Maersk Line and I have tried to apply the
principles in my own work life, both for myself as well as for the people in my responsibility and I hope
you find some inspiration either in your role as employee or as a leader.

Please note this is all about structure, not the interpersonal relationship on how we relate and
communicate. Without respect and earned trust all structures come to naught, but this structure
creates a culture of alignment and communication at the employee-manager level.

The work and job relationship description consists of seven (7) questions surrounding job purpose,
responsibilities, measurements, feedback and managing expectations and outcome.
 Question 1 - Why is what I do important?

Always start with the WHY! Clarity of purpose is critical for motivation and can be used for guidance,
when in doubt how to act.

The most important place to start is to ask and answer WHY is the job important to yourself as an
employee. Someone may argue that the job is for the company’s sake and not for the employee’s sake,
but I think the feeling of meaning, of purpose in one’s job is important for all people and most
organisations desire employees with motivation. And frankly, getting up early every morning, commute
to work, spend a large portion of your life working; it better be worth your while.

So, why is your job important to you? Is it just the money? Probably not, only you know. Is it a sense of
belonging, an opportunity to learn new skills and develop as a person, opportunity for promotion and
further development, the creation of good relations, meeting exciting people? Only you know - or do
you? For many people it is necessary and a source of joy to belong to a group of people and we must not
underestimate the importance of the social relationships in our teams.

Why is your job important for the company? Do you ensure the customers are more than satisfied? Or
do you ensure that the people servicing the customers can do this well? You can also ask “What happens
if I do a bad job?”, some people, maybe your nearest team-members, rely on you to do a good job or
even a great job.

2 As leaders we work on ensuring the company vision, mission and strategy are clear and understood by
all employees and that is very important. But, sometimes we forget to operationalise this at an
employee level, and that may be cause for confusion, uncertainty or even discontent, especially if the
employee feels there are discrepancies between the overall vision or strategy and his/her job.

This question is not the job description, but the answer could form the the introduction to the job
description.

Question 2 - What am I accountable for?

This question covers the activities that encompasses the job, the required output and the necessary
output, perhaps some quality requirements and timeliness. Processes or systems, which the employee is
responsible for, and also important relations inside the company or outside.

Matters that will often be described in the job description if such is available.

This is probably the first a new employee is informed about, since it covers what the employee is doing
on a daily basis (or weekly, or monthly, or whatever is described), however, even if an employee has
worked in the job for a longer time, it might still be worthwhile to revisit this once in a while.

Generally a job description can include items such as:

 Responsibilities
  Tasks (Example: Prepare monthly reports)

 Specific tasks (Example: Prepare monthly report for submission by 3rd working day of the
month, and as a minimum include information on XXX and YYY, by using information from
System ZZZ)

 Hierarchical relationships (Example: This position reports to Director of Finance)

 Requirements (The position requires specific knowledge about Danish Accounting standards and
IFRS regulations)

It is important that the employee is fully aware of what his/her responsibilities are and at the same time
it is important that the job description does not become a straitjacket, but has room for initiative and
flexibility in line with changing requirements in the job and the organization.

When an employee has served a year in a new position, the initial job description is likely no longer
complete in relation to what the employee is actually doing and as time goes by the original job
description becomes outdated, and as such it makes sense to revisit the job description from time to
time.

Question 3 - How is my performance measured?

Or put in another way: “How do I know when I am doing a good job?”.

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Do I have some measurable deliveries? For instance some KPIs? Something with timeliness or accuracy.
Are there means to measure the quality of my work?

What am I measured on - Quality of my work - Efficiency - Innovation - Adherence to company values -

Helpfulness/Being a team-player?

Am I responsible for some large projects to be delivered, by a certain date, within a specific budget or
otherwise described.

Can my deliverables be described in relatively short sentences, which describe a future desired state?

How can I ‘objectively’ identify the level of my performance. Inside myself I know my effort level, but
how do I know if the hard work results in the right performance?

Some organizations set targets for the following year, however, since the environment and the work
tends to change over time, similar to the job description, as mentioned above, then sometimes the
targets loose relevance or the targets are fulfilled already mid year, perhaps the projects were easier to
finalize, and as such it is important that new targets are set.

Question 4 - How am I performing?

 It is one thing to know the responsibilities and the required activities, as well as the expected output,
the performance. It is another thing to assess how things are going. Am I performing? And how well am I
performing?

The employee has an opinion, but so does the manager, and alignment facilitates a good dialogue.

Firstly, the employee must ensure to form his/her own understanding on the level of performance.
Firstly by considering how the performance is measured and whether he/she meets the targets.

Secondly, it is also important to get feedback from the manager to assess the extent of alignment of the
employee’s opinion and the manager’s opinion.

One thing is the personal performance, but also in the larger scheme of things, "are we delivering as per
the overall purpose?". For instance the employee delivers well on all personal targets, but overall the
department is not meeting its targets, for instance within customer satisfaction, then that needs to be
addressed jointly in the team and with the manager. Maybe the targets, or even the tasks, do not
properly contribute towards the overall goal, and this must be addressed.

Sometimes there will be a difference in opinion. The employee thinks that he/she has made a stellar
performance, whilst the manager will regard it as average. That has got to do with differing expectations
or lack of clarity in either responsibilities or performance measurement. An on going dialogue is the
most effective way to manage expectations and create clarity.
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Do you get regular and clear feed-back from your manager? And how? Regular feedback is critically
important for most employees in order to ensure to manage expectations and create alignment on
targets, activities and behavior’s.

Question 5 - What am I doing to improve my performance?

We can all get better at what we are doing, and we should strive to improve - for our own sake. So what
am I doing to improve? In some cases it is a matter of working harder, going the extra mile so to speak.
However, in most cases it is a matter of working smarter, not harder.

So, how do I reflect upon my job, my tasks and activities? Can I do it differently, more effectively? Do I
need new training? Do we need to change the process, can we get the person who makes my input to
make some changes and thereby make my job better? Can I do some changes in my output which is
improving the work of the people who uses my work?

You can argue that any employee has two jobs - the current job plus the job of continuously improving
the current job. In some organisations that is already included in the job description and measurements.

Question 6 - What support do I need from my manager to improve my performance?

One of the manager’s most important responsibilities is to ensure that the employees can perform and
continuously improve their jobs. This requires that the employee has the right competencies i.e. the
right skill-set and training to perform the job. But also the right environment, tools and support.
 Example: If there are challenges in getting the right input from another department, and the employee
has tried in vain, then the manager must step in and take action and help to get this sorted.

Sometimes it is easy to help employees to improve performance, say an accounting employee spends a
lot of time reconciling, then two computer screens may be a big facilitator in improving performance
and perhaps job satisfaction. But it can also be more complex and requiring cross-functional process
changes. For instance if an AP employee spends time on locating the purchase responsible on incoming
supplier invoices, the solution may be to get the purchasing functions to inform suppliers to put
purchaser’s name or department on the invoice.

Question 7 - What is in it for me, if I do great, good, average or below expectations?

The answer to this question is linked to the very first question i.e. Why is what I do important (for me)?

A pay-check is one answer and continued employment could also be one. Some jobs have bonus and
incentives assigned depending on job performance, and some companies base salary increments on past
performance, so money is one lever that companies use to try and secure best possible performance,
although a number of studies show that there is no link between incentive and performance, but that
discussion is not the purpose of the article.

Clearly, personal fulfilment from the feeling of doing a good job is important for most employees, but
the positive recognition from management and peers is also a motivator for most people.
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There may also be opportunities for promotion either into another position or by getting more
interesting and challenging tasks and activities in the current position. Both may come with company
supported education and courses, which may improve future employability and improved CV.

The above primarily goes for above average and great performances. If on the other hand the
performance is below expectations and below average, then both management and employee need to
do some soul searching.

First consider why the employee is performing poorly. Assuming all the preceding questions have been
properly asked and answered i.e. purpose is clear, responsibilities are clear and performance
requirements are clear and aligned, then have a conversation about why the performance is poor. Is it
lack of skills, poor cooperation in the team, bad attitude on behalf of the employee or something else.
On the basis of this it is the manager’s responsibility to put actions in motion to improve the situation, as
also clarified in a previous question. However, sometimes it ends up with letting the employee leave the
position.

Conclusion

For the employee it is important that the “Why this job is important for me?” is fulfilled. If it is not, then
nobody gains and it is a lose-lose situation, because an unsatisfied employee is bad for business. So even
if all 6 preceding questions have been asked and answered positively, and the manager has maintained
a good feedback loop there may still be dissatisfaction and sometimes it is because the employee
 changes opinion in terms of what is important, but it can also be matters beyond the manager’s sphere
of influence, so the above 7 questions do not solve all things, but it is a good start.

From a managerial perspective I venture that the 7 questions form a strong framework for focused
employee-manager conversations, and it will work whether you have weekly, fortnightly, monthly,
quarterly or annual one-to-one conversations, appraisals, performance reviews or whichever label is
used in your organisation. The more frequent the conversation, the more emphasis on questions
surrounding the actual performance, but do not forget to bring the other questions into play now and
again. The conversations shall consider the employee’s seniority, maturity and competence into
consideration, as well as attitude, as is the point of situational leadership.

Whatever you decide as manager, make sure to schedule regular meetings and stick to it, even if there is
very little to review, you can always benefit from getting to know your employees a little bit better, so
use the framework. You do not want to be in a situation where you only have a conversation with your
employees, when there are problems.

Further Reflection - Is this all there is to good people management?

Is this all there is to it? As said above it is not. This is just one tool in establishing a structure towards an
effective dialogue in the employee-manager relationship, and a model for analysis of your work-life or
the work-life of your employees, which can create a foundation to build on. Other steps deal with
creating strong and trusting teams and of improving one's own leadership towards transformational
6 leadership.

Several thinkers claim, that in order for people to be truly happy at work, three fundamentals must be
achieved for the individual - Purpose, Hope and Friendships. This speaks to purpose of company and
organisation and individual and the opportunity to improve on the individual’s situation and the social
aspects, the sense of belonging.

As an employee what is your take on the 7 questions? Can you answer these for yourself and does it
make sense for you? Is there anything you will change from now on?

As a manager what is your take on the 7 questions? Have you ensured that your employees have clarity
of purpose in their roles, the employees understand how you evaluate their performance and do you
perform regular feedback to the employees? Is there anything you will change as a result? Or do you
subscribe to a different way of managing the important employee-manager relationship?