By Tiffani Martinez, Human Resources Director – Otter PR
Goal-setting is a practice that promises to bear fruit in virtually every area of our lives. Students can leverage it to improve their grades, couples can utilize it to improve their relationships, and anyone can use it to improve their financial standing. Goal-setting provides an actionable and achievable approach to improving our focus and boosting our motivation, ultimately moving us toward our goals one manageable step at a time.
In the business world, goal-setting for employees has the power to improve performance and engagement. By asking employees to define and commit to goals, businesses help them focus on pushing past the status quo to improve their skills and the value they bring to the organization.
However, setting goals in a way that is healthy for employees can be tricky. Ideally, the goals will be inspirational and should stretch an employee beyond their current level of knowledge, skill, or capacity.
An account representative, for example, could set a goal to increase their client base by a certain percentage. Too small an increase, like adding one new client, will not involve the effort necessary to truly inspire growth, but too big an increase could lead to the representative neglecting existing clients in order to recruit and retain new ones, which would have a negative impact on the employee’s performance.
Goals that stretch an employee too far can become frustrating, demoralizing, and even damaging to the company. Goals must be realistic and inspirational. Finding the balance is not easy, but it is valuable.
Here are four tips that can help any company to develop inspirational yet realistic goal-setting for employees.
Tip #1: Embrace personal development
Encouraging and supporting personal development is one key to keeping goals inspirational and realistic. Employees who see the personal value in goals rather than just their organizational impact will be more motivated to pursue them, even when they require some stretching. A personal payoff inspires employees to pursue goals with more determination.
Continuing education is one example of goal-setting that embraces personal development. Employees who are able to acquire advanced degrees or specialized certifications can certainly benefit the company by applying their new knowledge and abilities. However, they also obtain a new qualification that will follow them for the extent of their career, which makes it a more inspiring goal than one focused on leveling up in a company-centric skill.
Developing leadership skills is a great example of goal-setting that embraces personal development while also benefiting the organization. Completing leadership courses can help employees in a number of personal pursuits, from coaching a child’s sports team to serving as part of a faith-based organization. For the organization, supporting goal-setting that focuses on leadership development creates an internal leadership pipeline that can improve agility and support promotion from within.
Tip #2: Balance organizational metrics and individuality
As managers seek to assist employees with goal-setting, it’s easy to focus too heavily on organizational metrics. Managers may want to see sales climb, productivity increase, and client retention improve — all of which they may look to their teams to help them achieve. To see the best results, however, organizations should seek to balance organizational aspirations with each employee’s individual goals.
For example, an employee may want to improve their communication skills to enhance their relationships with clients. This can include completing certifications on emotional intelligence or other key communication skills, as well as improving efficiency to free up more time for client interactions.
While the goal does not match metric-based organizational goals, it can support them in a big way. Better employee-client communication can improve client retention by building stronger customer loyalty and creating additional opportunities to upsell or cross-sell them.
Managers can achieve balance by embracing aspiration goals while also challenging employees to consider and pursue ways to leverage those goals to improve company metrics.
Tip #3: Foster intrinsic motivation
Organizations can significantly improve the success of goal-setting by tapping into employee’s passions. This practice leverages intrinsic motivations that can help employees to stay focused on and committed to goals.
Employees who are passionate about environmental issues, for example, can be intrinsically motivated to pursue goals that focus on sustainability. Employees who have benefitted from the guidance and encouragement provided by mentors may be quick to embrace goals that involve supporting new hires.
Companies may also find opportunities to foster intrinsic motivation when they focus goal-setting on company values. After all, strong values that are actively supported by a company create robust and attractional cultures.
For example, if employees joined your company based in part on their appreciation for your values, they may feel inspired to engage in goal-setting that seeks to further those values. Similarly, if your company places a high value on innovation, goal-setting that focuses on increasing innovation can spark passion in employees.
Tip #4: Align goals and outcomes
While valuing personal goals is an important part of goal-setting, encouraging employees to take a more active role in pursuing corporate goals can also be inspirational. When personal and corporate goals are aligned, it creates a win-win scenario, and showing employees how their efforts can play a key role in overall organizational success can increase their engagement and sense of satisfaction.
To achieve this, organizations must be able to clearly communicate their desired outcomes and show how employee efforts affect them. A company that wants to increase client retention, for instance, must show how employee-centered goals such as increased client contact or faster product fulfillment positively impact that goal. Companies that want employees to commit to goals aimed at reducing overhead costs should be able to show how updates to processes or procedures will affect that goal.
Organizations can further motivate employees to pursue this type of goal-setting if they can periodically show how their efforts are truly moving the needle. If goals are being met but outcomes are not being achieved, employees should be informed, and goal-setting should be adjusted.
Ideally, employees who are asked to align their goal-setting with a company’s desired outcomes will still be given the freedom to develop their goals. This can lead to aligned goals that tap into intrinsic motivations, increasing the employee’s motivation and commitment to the goal.
The benefits of effective goal-setting
Companies that commit to finding an effective strategy for employee goal-setting will experience benefits in a number of areas, not the least of which is employee retention. Goal-setting has the potential to increase employee engagement, motivation, and satisfaction, all of which lead to higher retention rates. With recent reports showing that 57 percent of businesses see “retaining employees/keeping top talent” as their top challenge, goal-setting should be seen as a vital practice in today’s business landscape.
Goal-setting can also support increased retention by providing businesses with more effective performance assessments. When goal-setting involves well-defined goals that have been developed with input from both employees and their managers, it gives measurable targets that enhance the objectivity and clarity of performance reviews. This creates clear benchmarks, which makes it easier for managers to evaluate progress and coach employees on ways they can improve their impact.
Goal-setting also has the potential to increase overall company productivity because aligning goals with company objectives empowers employees to focus their efforts in ways that produce company-wide synergy. Goal-setting can also broaden the skill set available to the company, allowing it to pursue new initiatives or expand into new markets.
Companies will benefit most from goal-setting when they establish processes that seek inspiring yet realistic goals. By valuing personal development, balancing individual and corporate goals, and tapping into intrinsic motivations, companies can expect strong outcomes that improve both employee engagement and overall organizational performance.
About the Author: Tiffani Martinez, Human Resources Director at Otter PR, excels at putting the “human” back into “Human Resources.” She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Keiser University with a BA in Business Management and a focus in Human Resource Management.