You can only really be engaged at work if you know clearly what needs to happen and what is expected of you. Yet according to research by Effectory, around 35 per cent of employees lack role clarity. Effectory

Role clarity becomes even more important when employees and managers work remotely a lot. If you see each other less often, you need to know even better what is expected and where the priorities lie.

Clear goals

When responsibilities, work content and work processes are clear, an employee experiences role clarity. It is not only about your own role, but also about that of your colleagues. Clear goals for everyone are a first requirement for functioning well. Employees then feel more responsible, are more motivated and perform better. And by working on role clarity, you also remove a possible source of stress.

Why are clear goals important for work engagement?

When an employee survey shows that the workload is too high, Guido Heezen of Effectory's first question is always: do employees actually know what is expected of them? It usually turns out that their role isn't clear enough. They do have some kind of job description, but doubt which organisational goal they should give priority to. Or they get confused because the goals seem to keep changing.

That makes people insecure. They want to do a good job, but don't really know what they are being judged on. As a result, they experience more workload. Then they go into overdrive, which increases the risk of burnout. Or they become less motivated and even drop out completely.

Five causes of role ambiguity

Where does role ambiguity come from? Heezen distinguishes five main causes:

  • erratic policy
  • giving contradictory signals
  • not coaching new employees enough
  • too little attention for managers' personal development
  • a lack of feedback

On that last point: role clarity also means that employees hear what they are doing well and badly, preferably as soon as possible. People much prefer immediate feedback on their performance to once a year in the traditional appraisal cycle.

How do you set goals that motivate?

Goals are preferably not too abstract. They must be achievable within a reasonable period, and you must be able to get started on them straight away. If not, employees soon think: forget it. Research by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham shows that specific, challenging goals lead to better performance than vague goals such as 'do your best'. Locke & Latham

You need clear goals like that at every level. The company goal could be to grow by fifteen per cent, for example, and a team goal to increase customer satisfaction by one point. After that, it is a real art to give every employee a good picture of how he or she contributes to the team goal, and how that in turn contributes to the organisation's goals. That can be in terms of output, but sometimes it is better to choose a goal that focuses on input.

Suppose an inside sales representative has to bring in 100,000 euros of new orders every quarter by scheduling sales meetings. That goal is probably not very motivating for him or her. Whether such a meeting is successful also depends on the salesperson who conducts it, and on the customer. The inside sales representative may then be inclined to ignore the whole goal. It is better to say: "Make sure you schedule fifty sales meetings this month." That is a concrete and achievable goal that lies within his or her control, and is therefore more likely to motivate.

Also read the influence of leadership on team performance and for flow, you need to be allowed to be yourself.

About this article: this piece is based on a blog by Guido Heezen of Effectory, from his series on the conditions for work engagement.

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