The Importance of "Under-promising and Over-delivering" as an Employee

In our previous blog post, we discussed how results are the ultimate bottom line when it comes to your current job and also your career.


But how do you go about achieving the results you need? Well, we're going to address the answer to that question during our next few blog posts.


When achieving results and delivering those results to your boss and/or employer, expectations are critically important. In fact, in some cases, the expectations regarding results can be just as important as the results themselves, at least from the perspective of the employee who is tasked with achieving them.


There are three primary ways that expectations are set within the workplace:

1.     1.The supervisor sets the expectations, with no input from the employee.
2.     2.The employee sets the expectations, presumably with permission from their supervisor to do so.
3.     3.The expectations are set by both the supervisor and the employee in a collaborative effort.

If you, as the employee, find yourself in either scenario #2 or scenario #3, where your input will be part of setting the expectations for when and how results will be achieved, the following should be your guiding mantra: "Under-promise and over-deliver!"


What this does NOT mean is you should "sandbag" or promise results that are so inconsequential that you might as well not promise results at all. What it means is promising to achieve results that are realistic for you to achieve, to the point where you are almost 100% sure that you will be successful. This is the "under-promise" part of the equation.


The "over-deliver" part is just what it sounds like. It means that you deliver more than you originally promised, and you can do so in two main ways:

1.     1.Deliver more results in the time frame in which you originally said you would.
2.     2.Deliver more results in a shorter amount of time than the time frame in which you originally said you would.

Obviously, the best way to "under-promise and over-deliver" is to deliver more results in a shorter amount of time. That is tantamount to a "double win."


Regardless of the manner in which you "under-promise and over-deliver," it's critically important that you do so. Delivering results is the ultimate bottom line in terms of your current job and your career, and this is definitely the manner in which you want to deliver those results.


If you are currently seeking a new job, Time Staffing's team of qualified staffing specialists offers assistance to job seekers in the light industrial and clerical fields. We prep candidates thoroughly by answering their questions and addressing their concerns.


Earlier this year, Time Staffing won ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing Client and Talent Awards for providing superior service to their clients and candidates. ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing Award is the only award in the U.S. and Canada that recognizes staffing agencies that have proven superior service quality based entirely on ratings provided by their clients and job candidates. Time Staffing received satisfaction scores of 9 or 10 out of 10 from 75.4% of their placed talent, significantly higher than the industry's average of 45%.