With the fast-paced nature of many businesses today, it is easy for the diffusion of responsibility to occur. Managers must ensure team members are accountable for their roles and discourage distracting and unproductive behaviors.
A business with unaccountability issues is not hard to spot. A team low on accountability will struggle to keep staff morale high. Employees will be lost on what to do as the company’s priority is constantly changing. There will be poor execution of tasks and declining engagement, leading to high turnover. Managers can foster accountability by clarifying team goals. For some organizations, employees don’t know the end goal, making it even difficult to assist.
4 Ways to Keep Your Team Accountable
One way to ensure accountability in your team is for every team member to know what is expected of them. For remote teams, it is more difficult to align expectations, and communication takes more work. Compared to on-premise settings, employees can make clarifications on the spur of the moment. Whether you run a remote or on-site team, here’s how to improve accountability.
1. Set Clear Expectations and Document Them
The importance of setting clear expectations cannot be overstated. The problem most teams have is that their goal is too vague. One way to set clear expectations is by using the SMART framework. Your goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and have a deadline.
Clear expectations help to set a baseline for performance measurement. Employees can concentrate their energy on work that matters because there is a guideline and structure. Communication becomes less ambiguous and more effective. It mitigates employee frustration and sets the benchmark for constructive criticisms.
It is important to have remote work policies well documented if you manage a remote team. The policies should cover essential topics such as defining working hours and communicating absence. Also, clearly defining roles helps improve collaboration and communication.
2. Assign Tasks to Individuals
As a manager, you can’t execute tasks by yourself. You need an efficient team to work with. Based on your team’s strengths, you need to determine who is most capable of handling a task. The team should be able to deliver and also manage the process, especially if tasks are interdependent.
When you assign tasks to individuals, the rest of the team knows who to hold accountable. When everyone is clear, there is less conflict and friction. Instead, everyone can use their unique skills to further the project. Project efficiency, staff productivity increases, and team morale are high.
3. Foster a Culture of Progress Sharing and Checking
Another habit that improves accountability is a culture of constant progress sharing. For some organizations, it could be daily or weekly. Frequently sharing and checking progress made helps motivate employees to do more. Daily or weekly communication makes it easier for anyone with a challenge to reach out.
Research shows that loneliness and communication are two of the biggest issues plaguing remote workers. It can be easy to get isolated in a remote job. But when a team has a culture of checking and sharing progress, managers can spot lapses. Virtual teams can also set up virtual voicemail to improve communication.
Virtual voicemail helps ease the pressure that comes with instant messaging. When busy or indisposed, messages will be recorded, and you can respond appropriately later. Even better with virtual voicemail, the recipient can view the message as a text or email.
4. Adopt an “Embrace Mistakes” Mantra
It is important to encourage your team to own their mistakes and failures. Failure is a necessary ingredient for success. It provides many valuable lessons to learn from and improve. The key to making the most of mistakes is learning from them and moving on.
When there’s a culture that insists on learning rather than perfection, employees are more accountable. Honesty and integrity are also key to improving accountability. When a worker sees a leader exhibit integrity, they naturally follow suit. A non-judgemental environment allows employees to build a solution mindset rather than playing the blame game.
The blame game shows a weak organizational culture and creates a toxic environment. Blame cultures result in reduced work engagement and productivity. There is a reduced level of creativity, innovation, and job satisfaction. Instead of employees looking inwards for solutions when problems arise, they quickly look for someone or something to blame.
A System That Works
Achieving accountability isn’t a one-off thing. Every organization has to imbibe the culture, and it must be discussed every day and reflected in the organization’s approach to executing projects. You must build systems into the organization’s workflow that reflects accountability.