New Year, Same Role: Getting Back to the Basics in 2024

The new creative idea.?

The exciting growth opportunity.

The 2024 resolution.?

All those shiny new opportunities we see ahead of us in the new year: they motivate and inspire us to dream. They let us take a peek into the future to see where we’re headed.

Charting a new path requires a solid foundation. It’s hard for me to focus on planning when my desk is a mess from the end of the year rush. Planning for 2x growth in revenue doesn’t work if your customer service isn’t where it needs to be. The new is good and important, but only if the basics form a strong foundation for the new things to happen.?

In addition to setting new organizational goals, January is the right time to get back to the basics and make sure things are running smoothly, our employees are thriving, and we are set up to crush our goals. It’s not nearly as fun as a vision board for a new year/new you, but getting clarity on our roles and the roles of our teams are the basics we need to succeed far into the new year.

Why Role Clarity (Purpose) is So Important

Clarity Defends Against Burnout

I used to go running with my husband. I say used to because our runs often ended with a fight. At the start, we’d decide how far we were going to run, but as we were nearing the end, he would say, “let’s just go one more block!” He thought he was being a great motivator, but it had the opposite effect - I felt dejected because he’d moved the finish line.

A poorly defined role can feel a lot like that moving finish line. If an employee isn’t exactly sure what’s on their plate, they might keep adding more and more until they completely run out of gas. Going a few unplanned extra blocks may be motivating for some runners, but for many, a clear target is the best target.

Purpose Leads to Engagement

Gallup developed an employee engagement survey in the 90s, called the 12 questions, which is still widely used today. The first of those 12 questions is, “I know what is expected of me at work.” As their research shares, “High performance in every role starts with the manager consistently communicating expectations, the purpose of the role, a clear understanding of priorities, and objective targets for improvement and growth. This communication helps employees understand what is expected of them and why.”?

Seems like role clarity is step zero for high employee engagement. There is no room to stretch and learn when the foundation is not solid.?

Alignment Avoids Overlap (& Resentment)

How many times have you realized that two team members are both working on a project, and it isn’t until days later that they find out that a colleague is working on the same thing? Given the many demands on our time, wasting it feels extra painful. Decrease those moments of frustration by ensuring roles are clear and everyone is on the same page before the work starts, or risk wasted time and unnecessary resentment.?

Recognition Requires a Definition of Success

If the finish line keeps moving, when do you celebrate? We all like being appreciated and having our accomplishments recognized and celebrated. If employees know what their role is and what success looks like, it’s a lot easier to recognize them for achieving it. Bonus celebration note - make sure you know how your employees like to be acknowledged - some love public praise, but others might want a private pat on the back! Either way, the foundation is knowing when it’s time to open the champagne.

How to Increase Role Clarity

There are a few things you can do to remove the cobwebs and get clear with your team (and yourself):

Align Roles with Goals

So much time and energy goes into crafting the perfect goals for your organization. When you look across your organizational chart, you should see a collection of roles that are designed for and equipped to accomplish those objectives. Getting back to purpose, if employees understand how their day-to-day work directly impacts the company’s success, they will feel their work is important. If they feel their work is extraneous or worse, pointless, we’re back to that burnout scenario. Instead of starting employee goal-setting and then trying to map them to the company’s larger mission, start with the company’s goals and work from there.?

Business as Usual

A common question employees ask during goal setting is, “but what about my ‘regular’ job? The day to day stuff I’m responsible for?” Big company priorities might not include running payroll or onboarding a new employee, but those things absolutely still matter. To both get clarity on roles and simultaneously align roles with goals, identify “Business as Usual” as a crucial part of their success. Define it, document it, and continue to refine it as the day-to-day changes for your team. And when it’s time to review progress to goals, success must include uninterrupted “Business as Usual.” Bonus for documenting “Business as Usual:” when an employee takes leave or moves on, there isn’t a scramble to figure out what was on their plate.

Clarity Includes Transparency

If you can look across your org chart and see how everyone fits into company success, then everyone else should be able to, as well. Making roles and goals transparent avoids confusion and overlap (see #3 above) and will spark conversation and collaboration about where the whole company is heading. Letting employees see everyone else’s goals adds context to their own, and creates shared ownership of success. Make it easy to access and understand, and keep it updated, or else the whole exercise could backfire and you’re back to square one.

Change is the Only Constant

If your employees’ goals and roles are aligned, it can feel like you’re set and don’t have to think about it until the next goal cycle comes around. This is a trap; if you don’t refine the expectations as the context changes around them, employees might take on more work until their plate breaks or may even ignore anything that isn’t explicitly included. Doing this process “in pencil” and creating a culture of review and refinement will keep employees’ understanding of their role clear. The goals themselves might not change, but the path to achieve them might. The timeline might be shortened, so something else might have to go. This builds trust with employees that you understand their workload and are taking care to keep it aligned with the direction of the company.

Setting big goals in a new year is exciting and is an important part of defining the future for you and your company. To ensure your team is set up to achieve big goals, take time in January (and regularly) to focus on employees’ roles so they understand what is expected of them and are set up to succeed in the new year.

Lora Cover is the Founder and CEO of coLeague. coLeague places embedded Chief People Officers at the right time in the right way for organizations that need the expertise of experienced people leaders. As an entrepreneur growing her own company, she is using this month to get clear on her role and her teams’ too.