Workplace Culture Training: Cultivating Accountability for Growth and Success

People don't wake up, look in the mirror and say, I want to make this day as horrible as possible. You go to work, do your job and do it well. However, getting overwhelmed or confused with priorities is easy as your days or weeks become busier. Accountability is more than just knowing your job task. It's about setting goals, progressing and growing in your role and organization. These are vital skills that can help create more accountability in your role. This training will explain the components of accountability and how to take it one step further to develop a culture of continual development. In this training, we will explore processes for setting and monitoring goals, time management, project or task management, developing a growth mindset and giving or receiving feedback. Your work ethic and consistent meeting of expectations will help you throughout your career. Performance management is a part of any role and being accountable includes meeting the standards for your position. Accountability is owning your actions and being responsible for your job performance. Setting and monitoring goals is a significant part of being accountable. When setting goals, narrowing them down to actionable tasks is crucial. One of the main pitfalls of setting a goal is being too broad or not specific enough to track progress. It's difficult to be accountable for ambiguous, ill defined goals. An easy acronym to help with this process is Smart Goals. S is for specific. All goals should be specific enough that it's easily understood by both you and your manager. M is for measurable. All goals should have a measurement that allows for progress tracking and a metric for accomplishment. A is achievable. When setting a goal, it's essential to ensure it can be accomplished. Do you have the knowledge and skills to reach this goal? R is for relevant. Your goal should relate to your role and the goals of your department or organization. Ensure your goal is relevant to your role. T is for time bound when will you realistically be able to complete this goal? If it's ongoing or takes an extended time, the goal is likely too broad. It should be narrowed down or broken into milestones. An example of a smart goal is I will complete my OSHA 30 certification by the end of the month to qualify for the safety technician role. Using smart goals creates a crystal clear picture of your plans that can be shared with your manager. When determining if the goal is achievable, you must decide on a metric for tracking that progress. Is the goal accomplished when the task is done or does this goal have an extended timeline that requires tracking milestones? Monitoring progress and celebrating completion with your manager will keep you motivated and aligned. It's just as essential to have transparent discussions when goals are unmet. Setting Specific and achievable goals can be done daily. Ask yourself, what do you need to accomplish today? Or goals can be more long term with time bound dates in the future. Setting goals helps move you forward and creates higher performance regardless of timing. But how do you even set goals when everything feels like a priority? Time management is a vital skill. Understanding how to prioritize your daily tasks, plan for the future, and problem solve when there's a roadblock will increase your ability to accomplish goals. While everything may feel like a priority, it's not. You should really be asking yourself, is this urgent? Is this important? What is the due date? Understanding urgency, importance and due dates will help you create a task list. Making a list or setting due dates on your calendar can help you prioritize daily work and when to plan for tackling more long term goals in your schedule. If there's ever a question of priority, check in with your manager for clarification. For managers, it's your job to keep your people on track and check in on goal progress. Your role can vary depending on what your team needs. If goal setting is a newer process, your employees need help setting goals. It's crucial to guide or facilitate a conversation versus telling your team members exactly what to do. Setting direct orders may work in the short term, but high performing teams are formed from then. Doing the hard work. Putting more responsibility and ownership for accountability on your employees will allow for more pride in their work. As a manager, you should help create tasks or goals, set up due dates or provide timing for tasks, assist in assigning priorities or approve the due dates your team members will provide and track progress. Communicating clearly is necessary when talking with your employees about accountability. When speaking, you should consider an empathetic perspective. If your employee isn't accomplishing goals due to feeling overwhelmed, uncover and address the underlying issue. These conversations around goals should be two way and collaborative. However, when there is a clear pattern of underperformance, then corrective actions will need to be taken to get employees back on track. Performance management will need to be a continual process. A growth mindset sees new or challenging tasks as opportunities to grow or develop. There is no cap on what you can create or discover when you have a growth mindset. A fixed mindset believes your talents, skills or abilities are set. That just isn't true. People grow and learn every day. Tapping into this potential will allow your role and accomplishments to increase. To create a growth mindset, you can purposefully choose your mindset. See obstacles or possible failure as opportunities to learn new skills, ask for help or advice and you can take action. Get out of your comfort zone. Having a growth mindset means setting goals in a new way. Creating a plan you can easily accomplish isn't that much of a challenge, and it won't promote growth. Yes, you are completing a task, but are you genuinely growing? Do you have aspirations for a promotion or a job with more responsibility? To reach that level, you must operate on a larger accountability scale. You're not only accountable for your behaviors and job task performance, but also for your own development. Some examples of adopting a growth mindset are asking to perform a new task or job function, learning a new skill or taking a course job, shadowing someone in a different role, or seeking a new position or promotion. Stay curious and open to opportunities. Developing a growth mindset is a skill that can be applied to any part of life, and it can open doors that you may not have realized existed. The heart of accountability is clearly communicating goals, progress, and any roadblocks preventing you from succeeding. Good communication is concise, clear, and transparent. Accountability means communicating proactively. It's not enough to wait to be asked about progress or if you're having issues. Communicating frequently and being honest about the help you may need is essential. Essential from a manager's perspective. Remember to be honest and transparent when checking in with an employee. If you feel your employee is underperforming, go into the conversation acknowledging the issue so it can be discussed. Avoiding an uncomfortable situation by not addressing the performance issue is tempting. However, providing constructive feedback is a necessary part of accountability. Holding frequent conversations around performance helps everyone. You'll want to know if your efforts pay off. As an employee, if there is an issue. Having proactive, frequent conversations will allow you and your manager to problem solve you own your own performance. Ensuring you set attainable goals and keep a growth mindset by seeking new opportunities will create an accountability loop. Be open to feedback as you continue to progress towards your goals. When an employee sets a smart goal, it's essential to check in to discover the what measurement was used in the goal. Do you see any progress towards accomplishment? Has the goal remained achievable, or do you see your employees struggling to reach the goal? How could the goal be changed to be more attainable? Does the timeline set make sense? Is the employee on target, or must the timeline be adjusted? Goals and progress tracking provide a reliable framework that moves the organization forward. Many times there isn't enough communication or collaboration between management and employees, which causes a more significant performance gap. You will react to a possibly avoidable performance issue if you're not having proactive conversations when employees are responsible for their performance. A manager should know each employee's successes and challenges. You'll need to follow company policies in cases of underperformance. It's essential to document the behaviors or issues so that you can clearly outline the performance gaps and all of the support you've already provided to help bridge those gaps. Many organizations have a clear process for this, from warnings to terminations, and when those steps are appropriate. As a manager, you can try to help correct performance, but employees are also responsible for their own performance. Follow all guidelines and clearly communicate with employees when performance is poor and the consequences of continuing to underperform. Growing and developing your role or advancing in your career is rewarding. Being fixed or stagnant in your role only limits your possibilities for the future. Take chances to grow by creating challenging goals and having proactive conversations with your manager on performance. You are accountable for your job tasks and goals. However, working with your manager to ask for feedback or direction will only help you increase performance and build trust and a reputation for reliability. Setting daily priorities will reduce stress while helping create a task list to help keep you on track. Organizations value dedicated people that exhibit a good work ethic. You should be able to tie your high quality work to directly to your company's initiatives. Own your accountability and your future goals.