Employee engagement
The importance of setting objectives for business and employee growth is imperative to success.
Goals and objectives are the backbones of your business strategy. Goals give your business a sense of direction, and objectives make it happen.
Well, that depends on if you do it right, of course.
In fact, LSA Global found that highly aligned companies grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable while significantly outperforming their unaligned peers when it comes to:
When it comes to setting your business goals, your objectives must be measurable, specific, and realistic.
Define your purpose. What are you trying to achieve? When do you want to reach your goals? Are there any implications involved if you don’t accomplish them? Do you have the budget?
Think of it this way: How will you know if you’ve beaten your running personal best if you’re not keeping track of your timings?
Businesses most commonly set clear objectives by using the SMART method.
SMART stands for:
S – Specific: Who? What? Why? Where? When? Answer these questions to create a specific goal.
M – Measurable: What is your indicator for success? What’s the criteria for measuring success?
A – Achievable: Is your goal attainable? Do you have the right resources? If not, what’s missing?
R – Relevant: Does your goal align with your company values? How does it improve the business?
T – Time-bound: When is the deadline? When do you expect to be half-way?
Writing a SMART goal uses each of those five components to build a specific, measurable goal that encompasses precisely what needs to be done and when.
When setting objectives, especially for employees, it’s important to consider if the objectives are relevant to the overarching business aim.
For example, let’s say your SMART objective is to achieve a customer NPS of 80.
With Kallidus Perform, you set your business’s global objectives.
Global objectives are the organisation’s overall goals that every employee is working towards with their own objectives.
Reports provide useful insights for decision–makers, helps realign goals, and adapt if things are going off track.
The new reporting view in Perform makes goal setting easier, gives clearer visibility over wider teams, and keeps businesses accountable.
The Global Objectives Report within Perform displays how aligned the business is to its goals, the status of each objective, and the ability to pick out specific data to help employees reach their goals.
Amanda Cliff, Senior Learning & Development Manager at Weetabix, said: “Perform enables us to see, at a strategic level, how our company aligns itself behind our corporate goals. This visibility is crucial and helps us stay ahead of the game when hitting these objectives right across our business.”
The proof really is in the pudding… or this case, a bowl of Weetabix.
If you’re failing to track global objectives, your business may fall short of what it’s trying to achieve.
In fact, research shows that the more often you check in on your progress, the more likely your business is to succeed. Similarly, your chances of success can increase even more if you physically record your objectives’ progression.
At the moment, only 46% of companies review or revise their objectives throughout the year.
Visual aids, graphs, and snapshots of progress are effective ways to quickly update peers, or if you just want a status overview to show the boss.
With the Global Objectives Report, these handy tools are readily available as soon as you log in to Perform, meaning tracking your global objectives’ progress is more accessible and manageable than before.
Don’t fall into the trap of setting goals annually and losing sight of improving your organisation.
Track your objectives, keep them relevant to your aim, and if you’re underachieving, question why and what you can do to realign your focus.
With a sturdy performance management system to do the hard work for you, it comes down to defining what you want to achieve, having clear communication with your teams, and using reports to revise objectives, align as a business, and preparing to adjust objectives for the future.
We know our handy new reporting tool sounds pretty awesome, so get in touch to talk to one of our friendly team members to see how we can streamline your performance management.
Mara has a passion for promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion across global workplaces and hopes to inspire learners to focus on their own careers with self-directed learning content.
