Employers want new hires to make a strong start, and most new employees want exactly the same thing. Problems can arise when the employer and employee have different ideas about what a strong start actually looks like.
A new employee can be capable, motivated and eager to contribute and still get things wrong if they do not understand what is expected of them. Responsibilities may be outlined in the job description and processes covered during training, but expectations around communication, initiative, independence and workplace norms are not always as clearly explained.
Setting clear expectations is not lowering the bar. It is making sure your new employee knows where the bar is.
Don’t Make New Employees Guess
Think about how much of what you expect from a new employee you have never actually told them.
Some expectations become so familiar that we stop thinking of them as expectations at all. We simply see them as the way things are done. For someone joining your organization, however, those unwritten rules may be anything but obvious.
What Does Success Look Like in This Role?
A new employee needs to understand more than what they are responsible for. They also need to know what doing the job well looks like.
Start by explaining what they should focus on during their first week and first month, and how those expectations are likely to change over the next few months.
This is particularly important with junior and early-career employees. Someone who is new to the profession should not immediately be measured against a colleague who has been performing the same responsibilities for years. Progressive expectations allow them to build knowledge, confidence and independence over time.
That does not mean lowering your standards. It means being realistic about what someone should know today and helping them understand what you expect them to be able to do tomorrow.
What Does Good Communication Look Like Here?
Every workplace communicates differently.
One manager may want regular updates throughout a project, while another expects employees to work independently and only check in when they encounter a problem. One team may rely heavily on Teams or email, while another handles most questions through quick conversations.
Tell your new employee what good communication looks like in your organization. When should they provide updates? How quickly are they expected to respond? When should they involve their manager? What should they do if they realize they may miss a deadline?
These expectations may seem obvious when you have worked together for years. A new employee has no way of knowing them unless someone explains them.
When Should They Ask Questions and When Should They Work It Out Themselves?
We often tell new employees to ask questions. Then, after a while, we expect them to start figuring things out independently.
The missing piece can be explaining how that transition happens.
Encourage questions, particularly during the early stages of training, but also help employees understand how you want them to approach problems. Should they research the issue first? Try a solution? Come to you with a recommendation? Are there situations where you want them to stop and ask before proceeding?
As their knowledge grows, so should their ability to work independently. Asking questions and developing independence are not opposites. Good training gradually helps an employee know which questions to ask, when to ask them and when they have enough information to make the decision themselves.
Help Them Understand How Your Workplace Works
Technical skills can transfer from one employer to another. Workplace norms often do not.
Even an experienced employee may arrive from an organization where communication, decision-making and expectations around independence were very different.
What Does Initiative Look Like in Your Organization?
“Take initiative” sounds like a straightforward expectation until you consider how differently managers can interpret it.
Does taking initiative mean identifying a problem and fixing it? Bringing the problem and a proposed solution to a manager? Suggesting improvements but waiting for approval before making changes?
Be clear about what you mean.
New employees should be encouraged to contribute ideas, but they also need time to understand why existing processes work the way they do. A useful principle can be to observe before you improve.
Someone may see an opportunity to change a process without yet knowing the history, dependencies or controls behind it. Helping them understand when to ask, suggest or act allows them to be proactive without unintentionally creating new problems.
Which Workplace Expectations Might Not Be Obvious?
Consider the everyday expectations that may never appear in a job description or training manual:
- Working hours, flexibility and availability
- Remote or hybrid work expectations
- Breaks and personal phone use
- Meeting preparation and etiquette
- How seriously deadlines are treated
- When and how to report an absence or delay
- How information is shared across the team
- Which decisions require approval
- When employees are expected to work independently
- How mistakes and corrections are handled
These expectations are not necessarily universal.
What feels like basic workplace knowledge to you may simply be knowledge of your workplace. A new employee may be bringing an entirely different set of norms from their previous employer.
An experienced colleague can also be a valuable resource during this transition. Giving a new employee a go-to person for everyday questions can make it easier to learn how things work without feeling as though every small question needs to go through their manager.
Are You Explaining the Why as well as the What?
Knowing what to do helps an employee complete a task. Understanding why they are doing it helps them make better decisions.
For an accounting employee, that could mean explaining who relies on a reconciliation being completed by a particular date and what happens if it is late. For someone in payroll, it could mean explaining why changes need to be submitted before a particular cutoff and how missing that deadline affects employees.
Context helps people understand priorities and make decisions when they encounter a situation that was not specifically covered during training.
The more employees understand how their work connects to the rest of the organization, the better equipped they are to work independently.
Make Expectations an Ongoing Conversation
Expectation-setting should not end when orientation does.
As a new employee gains experience, their responsibilities may expand and you will probably expect them to need less direction. Business priorities can change too. Expectations that were appropriate during someone’s first month may be very different six months later.
How Will Your New Employee Know Whether They’re on Track?
Do not make them wait until a formal performance review to find out.
Give feedback early and regularly. Let them know what they are doing well as well as where they need to adjust. Clear, direct feedback gives employees a fair opportunity to understand expectations, make adjustments and succeed. Avoiding a difficult conversation may feel kinder in the moment, but unclear communication can create confusion and leave an employee without the information they need to improve.
Make sure the conversation goes both ways. Rather than simply asking, “Does that make sense?” ask your new employee to explain what they understand the priority, expectation or next step to be. This can uncover misunderstandings early and give you an opportunity to clarify before they become bigger issues.
Set incremental goals so they can see how their responsibilities and independence are progressing.
Regular conversations also make it easier to correct misunderstandings early. If an employee misunderstood an expectation, correcting it after two weeks is much easier than discovering six months later that you have both been working from different assumptions.
Important expectations can also be put in writing. New employees absorb a tremendous amount of information during their first few weeks, and having something they can refer back to can help. Documentation should support the conversation, however, not replace it.
Have Your Expectations Changed?
As employees become more capable, managers naturally start expecting more from them.
The problem comes when the expectation changes but the conversation does not.
Perhaps you now expect an employee to handle a task without checking with you first. Maybe they are ready to take ownership of a larger part of the month-end process. Perhaps changing business priorities mean something that was once urgent is no longer their primary focus.
If the bar moves, tell them.
Employees cannot adjust to an expectation they do not know has changed.
What If Your New Hire Comes From a Very Different Workplace?
Clear expectations are not only important for junior employees.
An experienced hire may have been extremely successful in another organization while working under a completely different set of norms. What counted as proactive there may be considered overstepping here. The amount of independence expected may be different. Communication may be more formal or less formal.
Avoid assuming an experienced employee “should know this by now.” They may know their profession very well. What they do not know yet is your workplace.
Giving them the opportunity to recalibrate can help them apply their experience successfully in a new environment.
Give Your New Employee the Information They Need to Succeed
Starting a new job is a two-way process. While new employees can take steps to make a great first impression when starting a new job, employers can help make that strong start possible by clearly communicating what success looks like.
Your new employee probably wants to do well. They want to understand their role, contribute to the team and become someone you can rely on.
Clear expectations give them the confidence to become more independent, make better decisions and contribute sooner.
Setting clear expectations is not lowering the bar. It is making sure your new employee knows where the bar is.
