The Key Role of Accountability in the Workplace

By Razelle Janice Drescher 

Accountability plays an essential role in business success. If everyone in a company knows their job, agrees to be responsible for the tasks assigned to them, and to meet the standards set to maintain the company’s reputation, a company can operate like a well-oiled machine, ensuring profitable business operations and predictable outcomes. If anyone drops the ball, then the business is subject to breakdowns in communication and operations that can negatively impact the bottom line and healthy work relationships.

What Does It Take to Ensure Accountable Employees?

As a business coach, I have worked with hundreds of CEOs to build and implement the systems needed to establish and maintain accountability among employees. For these systems to ensure accountability, employees must be willing to use them! So, before accountability can be required, the business owner has to understand what is needed and provide it:

1. Position Agreements that clearly define the result, work, and standards required for each job function.
2. Agreement from the employee to be accountable for the result, work, and standards of their job function.
3. A manager/supervisor whose job is to provide support to each member of their team by meeting regularly to address what is working well and what needs improvement.
4. Systems for each job function that include steps and standards to ensure consistency in achieving the stated result(s).
5. Training to ensure that employees are supported in maximizing their performance.
6. Follow-up that monitors the systems and identifies gaps causing errors, followed by updates to systems with proper introduction and training.

What Happens if Employees are Unwilling to Use the Established Systems and Standards?

Accountability starts with the business owner, CEO, COO, or Managing Director creating clarity about the business vision and how the business will operate. Accountability starts there where the seeds for accountability are planted. Accountability has to be woven into the fabric of what the business is all about and how it impacts everyone’s success. This starts with recruitment and extends to onboarding and day-to-day operations over time. It requires consistent messaging all the way up and down the line, including all directors and managers.

A Culture of Accountability

How do you get the necessary agreement from all parties for this culture of accountability?  It starts when each employee goes through the recruitment process, hears the vision, joins the company, and signs their Position Agreement. This is the opportunity for each employee to understand how accountability works and why it’s important for everyone’s success. If someone doesn’t want to agree to that kind of accountability, then it’s best not to hire them. The importance of getting verbal and written agreement to be accountable for the result, work, and standards of the job, can’t be underestimated. Without it, a culture of conflict instead of agreement can emerge. With it, there is a unified effort, with everyone on the same page, pulling together to produce the desired result. In this kind of environment, employees can count on each other, trust is built, and everyone wins.

A business owner who is reluctant to take a stand about the standards to be met is putting the company at risk. Putting systems and standards in writing is the baseline for success. However, successfully implementing those systems and standards is what sets successful companies apart from companies that depend on the goodwill of their employees to make things work without documented systems. Depending on individual employees is a slippery slope because if those employees leave, they take their experience with them. Companies with documented systems can spend their time improving their services, systems, and customer experience. Companies without documented systems lose precious time repeatedly fixing mistakes and dealing with miscommunication issues.

And the employees who won’t agree to be accountable? Let them go! As the business owner, you set the tone for how your business will operate. Putting the right foundation in place sets you up for smooth-running operations, healthy work relationships, and fewer headaches!