How Your High Expectations is Hurting Your Team’s Performance

Any recruitment firm manager would like their team to excel at what they are doing. That’s why goals are set. When objectives are met, it means client success is achieved, the firm’s reputation gets a boost, and more profit for the future is underway. 

But how aware recruitment firm managers are in evaluating if they’ve set unrealistic standards? While there is pressure due to competition and demand, setting unrealistically high expectations can have dire consequences. Mental health concerns are only the beginning. Chronic negative emotions could eventually translate to high turnover and a harmful impact on your team and the firm in the long run. 

Take a closer look at how work pressure can begin within the firm. You’ll find out that most of the time, goals need not be reevaluated. Leaders are the ones who actually play a crucial role in managing the work pressure. They must be able to rally for team performance without inadvertently hounding their team to perform. Hence, it’s important to have a team conversation on how to build a professional yet encouraging environment where high expectations are goals, not threats. 

High expectations can hurt team performance more. 

Little to no room for error is a setup for failure. You’ve probably heard of resignation stories because of horrible bosses, but there’s more to it than a leader with uncanny demands. These stories usually include the following:  

• Fear of disappointment. Instead of employees resting on the assurance that their leaders allow room for minor errors, they become hell-bent on pleasing them. This situation is not a healthy professional relationship. The office becomes a place of fear, and negative emotions as a governing tool for productivity will result in burnout.  
• Poor organizational resilience. Hope and motivation help a lot in keeping recruitment firms or any company from retaliating from a setback. However, if what is always emphasized is that employees don’t meet goals, they’ll always expect the worst to come.  
• Mental health issues. Emotional breakdowns, panic attacks, bouts of anxiety, and depression: These are just some experiences of employees who are pushed to their limits and left with nothing to give. For recruiters who always have to put on a welcoming face as they handle candidates despite going through bad days, extra care is not always exercised when their team finds out the state of their mental health.  
• Loss of interest in the company. Need we say more? If a recruiter feels unappreciated, they will want their way out. They’d rather venture into starting again rather than continuing with a problematic situation. 

Manage your own expectations. 

Three hundred executives across 10 countries were surveyed, and about 35% of them failed to meet goals due to a fixation on perfection. While managers excuse high expectations as a means for their team to do their best, unnecessary pressure really does nothing but harm. 

Sky-high expectations are possibly not totally aligned with company goals. Rather, they stem from a personal desire of a leader to always feel perfect and well-accomplished. That is why some managers get irked with even the slightest errors because they think they could have done better. It’s also possible that their disappointments with their role bubble over to the rest of the team. At this point, high expectations have to be revisited. 

In leading your recruitment team, consider these suggestions:  

• Let the team set what they expect from you. While you should still maintain your position of authority, allowing your recruiters to voice out what they expect from their leaders will help you stay grounded on being a team player. This will also emphasize that company goals are team goals, not anyone’s personal goals. It also tables what you could do when a recruiter fails to meet the so-called high expectations.  
• Don’t be too hard on anyone. When goals aren’t met, who is to blame? Have you thought of the possibility that no one is at fault? Redirect your frustration into identifying all factors, external and internal. Be fair in looking for areas for improvement, too. Perhaps not many applicants were interested in the firm’s job postings, or the candidates weren’t at par with standards.  
• Everyone has good intentions. Who does not want to improve their work and fulfill goals? It’s highly unlikely that your recruiters enter the office to slack off. Even if your team may hit a roadblock now and then, know that their professionalism holds them to perform as expected. 
• Now, extend the same consideration to yourself. Channel your frustrations towards your hopes and dreams for the firm, not on putting the blame on your recruiters. You have good intentions too, so let this be your guide in moving forward. 

Gauge the team performance based on realistically competitive expectations. 

There is no need to rethink the recruitment firm’s objectives. It will be better to look at how you can make the working environment more engaging and trusting while the team strives to meet important yet realistic goals. It’s so easy for managers to say that they appreciate the efforts of their team. What is better, though, is to let actions speak for themselves.  

• Define goals clearly. One pitfall of any manager is to set goals and generalize an explanation: “It’s for the good of the company.” By showing implications of the goals, both if met or not, your recruiters will have better context to strive harder in meeting them.  
• Schedule welfare checks. Beyond a simple “how are you” over messenger apps is an actual sit-down meeting wherein the employee is free to speak. Even just a half-hour with their manager openly listening would mean a lot to the team.   
• Rotate responsibilities. For recruiters who have been doing the same tasks but aren’t meeting goals, hoping that they gain progress will eventually lead to burnout. Let them try their hand at other assignments. This rotation will help them develop skills, gain new perspectives, and find new things to love about what they do.  
• Celebrate success. Set milestones and let the team be creative in meeting them. Reward accomplishments beyond material or monetary gifts by speaking about them during meetings or announcing their kudos on your company website or social media account. In short, be appreciative. While your recruitment firm has major goals to meet, the little successes your team makes are worthy of recognition. 

Know when to motivate and encourage your team. 

Building a work environment that emphasizes positive reinforcement is key in meeting goals. Instead of waiting for summarized reports at the end of a timeframe, it would be nice to look at numbers as they are collected. It keeps recruitment firms on the pulse of their goals, and it helps leaders identify successful employees or guide those who might need help right away. Is it possible to get real-time statistics? 

Great Recruiters’ experience management platform can answer this specific need for numbers on the dot. Aside from automated requests for candidate feedback, our software evaluates the said feedback so that key points in the recruitment process are actioned right away.  

The software dashboard also provides clear data visualization, so you can easily keep tabs on all your staff’s interactions with candidates. Issues are resolved right away, even before they affect company goals because changes can be applied in no time.

Learn more about the advantages of using Great Recruiters in managing your recruitment team’s performance.

Book a demo now.