Identifying and Setting Expectations

In a remote work setting, there will be occasions where you may not be able to communicate with your team frequently. Hence, you should establish guidelines when engaging with your clients or colleagues (Himelstein, 2016). Here are some tips on how to plan your communication process in setting expectations.

1. Identify the media that are accessible to everyone in the team. This includes a shared platform and drives, and communication tools, and progress tracking software.
2. Establish how quickly clients and remote workers expect a response on an email, post, or chat. It is crucial in a remote work to keep everyone updated since this is their only mode of communication.
3. Set realistic deadlines and expectations and always provide detailed information about the output and tasks.
4. If the task is too broad, chunk them to smaller tasks to meet deliverables.
5. The team should set a shared report to trace everyone’s progress. This will also be utilized when encountering roadblocks in projects and to set balanced accountabilities for inaccurate and opaque communication in remote working situations.
6. The team should set a daily, weekly, or monthly report to have transparency of the current project progress. This will engage all remote workers to be proactive in meeting their expectations while enjoying autonomy.
7. Nevertheless, the team should create contingency plans and allow room for revisions and feedback in all engagements. As members, you should report roadblocks when you face challenges.

Comparison of setting expectations

Scenario 1:

Elise is the head of the Events and Creative team and she asked her co-remote workers to launch an online Easter event in time with the Holy Week celebration.

Scenario 2:

During the project execution, David, the graphic designer, was about to upload the revised images for the Easter egg hunt. However, there was a power outage in their barangay. What should be his recourse?