They Should Know This by Now. But Were They Ever Taught?

I was sitting with my line manager and two other senior people. The conversation kept circling the same frustration.

They've been told this.
They've already had orientation.
Why don't they know?

I understood it. I've felt it myself. When you are stretched and something keeps going wrong, frustration nudges you towards the simplest explanation: they should already know this by now. But something shifted in that room when someone asked a different question.

Is our orientation actually up to scratch?

That one question changed the direction of the room. When was it last properly reviewed? Who delivers it, and does everyone deliver it the same way? Are we teaching people how this place actually works, or just handing them a document and hoping they absorb it?

None of us had a confident answer. And that is the point of this piece.

Before you decide someone has a performance problem, it is worth asking a simpler question first.

Was it ever actually taught?

What do we know, and what do we think we know?

This is a habit I try to bring to most problems at work. What do we know? What do we think we know? And what do we actually need to find out?

“They should know this by now” sits firmly in the second box. It feels like a fact. Usually it is a guess wearing a fact's clothing.

Because “they should know” and “they were taught, they understood it, and they had a chance to practise it” are two very different things. We tend to collapse them into one. The gap between them is where most performance frustration lives.

So before the frustration hardens into a story about someone's attitude, it helps to slow down and check the story you are telling yourself. You have probably already decided why they did it. The honest question is whether you actually know that, or whether you have filled a gap with a guess.

Experience in a job is not the same as experience in your workplace

Here is something that trips up good managers.

Someone can be genuinely experienced and still not know how your workplace does things.

A person promoted from within knows the organisation inside out, but may be learning a brand new role. Someone who arrives with years of experience in the field knows the work extremely well, but may not know your systems, your culture, your particular version of how things get done. Treating both as though they should already know everything is where the mismatch starts.

If you treat everyone as though they arrive knowing your particular version of the job, you will keep being surprised. And the people on the receiving end will keep feeling like they are failing a test they were never told they were sitting.

A documentation problem that wasn't a performance problem

Here is one that stuck with me.

A nurse came to me with concerns about another nurse's documentation from the night shift before. The nurse whose work was being questioned was senior and experienced, but fairly new to our organisation.

The easy move would have been to go straight to the person and say, you documented this incorrectly.

I didn't, because I didn't actually know enough yet. I didn't know how busy the shift had been, how unwell the patients were, or what else was landing on that nurse at the same time. I didn't know what their understanding of the expectation was, or where they had learned it.

So I contacted them to understand their side of it first.

When we talked it through, it turned out the documentation was generally okay. But some information had been entered in places that made sense based on the system they had used at their previous job, not the way our system was set up. Nobody had shown them the difference.

That is not a performance problem. That is a local knowledge gap. It still mattered, because other people rely on finding key information in particular spots, and consistency affects everyone working that shift. But the response needed to be different from what it would have been if I had just assumed the worst.

So I showed them where it needed to go here, and why. I also said the honest thing: you have come from somewhere else, there will be differences you haven't hit yet, so ask me or another senior person before you assume the same rule applies here.

Curiosity found the real problem. Judgement would have hidden it.

This isn't only a healthcare thing

Swap out the ward and this happens everywhere.

The new hire who formats the report the way their last company wanted it. The one who logs the job in the wrong field because that is where it went in their old system. The one who files the expense, sends the quote, or handles the complaint the way they were taught somewhere else.

It reads as careless. Often it is just someone doing a sensible thing in an unfamiliar place.

Curiosity, then clarity, then support, then follow-up

If you strip it back, there is a rough order that keeps things fair.

Start with curiosity. Find out what the person actually understood the expectation to be, and where they learned it.

Then clarity. Make the expectation specific. Not “be more thorough,” but “this information goes here, and here is why it matters to the people who read it next.”

Then support. Give them a real chance to get it right. That might be showing them, letting them practise, or simply telling them who to ask.

Then follow-up. Check back in. Did it land? Has anything changed since they were first shown?

Notice that accountability isn't on that list yet. That is deliberate. It comes next, and it still comes.

This is not an argument against accountability

I want to be clear about that, because it would be easy to read this as “go easy on everyone, it's always management's fault.” That is not it.

My patience is generous. It is not endless.

If you have explained the expectation clearly, given genuine support, followed it up, and the same thing keeps happening, the conversation changes. At that point it is fair to look at behaviour, attitude, and follow-through. That is a real accountability conversation, and it is the right one to have.

The difference is that now you are standing on solid ground. You can honestly say: we explained this, we showed you, we supported you, we checked in, and it is still not happening. That is a real accountability conversation. Not a frustrated guess dressed up as management.

Clear expectations and a bit of compassion don't remove accountability. They make it fairer.

What the research points to, held lightly

I am wary of leaning too hard on studies to prove a point I mostly learned on the floor. But a couple are worth knowing.

When researchers look at what helps new starters settle and perform well, role clarity keeps coming up. A large review of newcomer studies linked it, along with confidence in the work and feeling accepted, to better performance outcomes. A more recent systematic review of onboarding research found that structured, supported on-the-job training had the strongest support among the approaches reviewed — though the certainty of evidence varied across the studies included.

None of that is a formula. But it lines up with something most of us have seen up close. People do better when they genuinely understand what is expected of them.

Questions worth asking before “they should know this”

Next time you feel that frustration rising, it is worth running through a few questions before you act on it.

• Was the expectation clearly explained, or just assumed?
• Did anyone actually show them, or were they handed a slide deck?
• Have they had a real chance to practise it?
• Did we check they understood, rather than checking they nodded?
• Did we explain why it matters?
• Do they know who to ask when they are unsure?
• Has anything changed since they were first shown?
• What do I actually know here, and what am I assuming?

You will not need all of these every time. But even one or two can turn a performance conversation into a much more useful one.

The question underneath all of it

“They should know this by now” is a story we tell ourselves when we are tired and stretched. Sometimes it is true. Often it is not.

The more useful move is to get curious before you get certain. Find out whether the expectation was ever really taught, understood and practised. Give people a fair shot at meeting it. Then, if it still keeps happening, have the accountability conversation you need to have.

It costs a little more effort at the start. It usually saves you a lot of repair later.

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