Using goals in the performance management process is fairly simple and straightforward. The following discussion seeks to provide a few tips to help managers.
Under which circumstance would you likely be more successful?
Scenario 1: Mary, your tennis coach, asks you to:
1. Get more first serves in, or
2. She asks you to focus on the height of your ball toss, snap your wrist with more authority, and try to increase your first serve percentage by 10%.
Scenario 2: Your sales manager tells you:
1. You need to improve your sales performance, or
2. The sales department has set a 4th quarter goal to increase cross-sell revenue by 10% and the number of sales demos given to middle market customers by 20%.
The first instruction is helpful, however, the second instruction is a real action plans with specifics on how the goals might be met. Providing generic encouragement such as “do your best,” “you need to be more professional,” or “we need to get sales up” may make managers feel as though they’ve addressed employee performance issues.
Goal setting can be a key component in managing both employee and team performance. Specific and challenging goals, combined with ongoing feedback can significantly impact productivity, work quality, and employee motivation. Goals can be effectively used in a variety of settings and formats, most commonly as part of a performance appraisal or employee development plan. However, they’re just as useful when used more informally and integrated into everyday activities.
Goals can be:
- Strategic. They help the employee focus on what is important to his or her particular job, department, or the organization as a whole. Goals make clear what needs to be done.
- Customizable. Goals can specifically address the unique performance and development needs of each individual, taking account of a specific employee’s experience, weaknesses, and strengths.
- Adjustable. As job functions, circumstances and business needs change, goals can be easily modified.
- Flexible. Projects, milestones, and less quantitative actions can be better addressed through goal setting rather than through use of more rigid performance appraisal factors.
- Inclusive. The goal setting process provides a great communication opportunity for managers and their employees. It’s a nice time to gather input and “buy-in” from employees.
Making Goals Work
- Involve the employee and avoid “I’ll Set the Goals, You Meet Them.”
- Employees know their jobs better than anyone. Their suggestions and insights are invaluable.
- Poor communication is consistently found to be one of the greatest problems in most organizations. The use of goals is a great vehicle to promote meaningful communication throughout a company.
- Employees who are involved in the goal setting process have a better understanding of what’s expected of them and will generally be more committed to the process. It’s also been shown that they’re likely to try harder.
- Envision how the story should end and then work toward getting there.
- Identify the possible objectives. What results need to be accomplished? What employee behaviors or actions are needed to meet the goals? What are your priorities?
- Be strategic. Consider the needs of the organization, your department, and of the individual employee. Goals can be developed to address objectives at various levels of your organization.
- Have both the employee and the manager generate ideas and prepare several possible goals before meeting to discuss them. Many employees need a little guidance regarding what’s an appropriate goal, how they should be written, etc.
- Recognize a good goal. Effective goals are:
- Results oriented. Be clear about what is expected to be accomplished.
- Understandable. Less is more. Be clear and simple.
- Specific. Provide details as to the desired outcome and the steps to be taken.
- Broken Into steps. Almost all goals are easier to achieve if broken into small steps that can be accomplished one at a time.
- Challenging. Goals need to be difficult enough to be interesting and meaningful. Asking an employee to basically perform at his current level isn’t effective. It may be most effective to have a mix of difficult and less challenging goals. More difficult goals promote employee growth while easier ones may promote good follow through and other important skills.
- Meaningful and desirable. No one wants to put effort into something that doesn’t matter.
- Achievable. While an employee should certainly “stretch” to achieve a goal, goals must be realistic and within an employee’s abilities. There must also be sufficient organizational resources and support to make the goals possible. Employees have to believe that goals are possible.
- Measurable. How will you know if you’ve been successful? Is the goal written such that the results can be “seen” and proven? Could several knowledgeable people assess whether the goal has been met? Measures should be as objective and quantifiable as possible.
- Time Specific. Goals that should be accomplished “as soon as possible” are examples of the hopeful approach discussed above. A mix of long and short-term goals may be effective. Try to spread out due dates.
- Appropriate to the Employee. Managers should be sensitive to the experience, education, and abilities of each employee as they consider goal content. For example, short-term goals may be most effective for new or less experienced employees. Procrastinators may need a different approach than an employee who has no trouble meeting deadlines.
- Good goal setting is done “with” employees not “to” them.
Don’t forget the feedback. Regular opportunities to discuss the goals as well as ongoing feedback are critical. Feedback is important to inform the employee how he’s doing as well as to point out the gaps between what’s been done and what needs to be done. Goals need monitoring and many employees need help staying on track.
Don’t give up. Giving up on goals or forgetting about them are quick ways to lose all credibility regarding the performance management process. Employees may sense that goals don’t matter and don’t need to be taken seriously. While goals may need to be modified it’s important to do so only for good reasons, not because you didn’t get around to them. Employees should understand why any changes are being made.
Celebrate success. Communicate that accomplishing the established goals is important by sharing the success publicly (e.g., at staff meetings), positively reinforcing the employee, or, as appropriate, tying their accomplishment to a reward of some kind. Victories and achievement are important to all of us.