Ultimate Guide to Objective and Key results – OKR Meaning and Examples
Do you dread setting goals for your organization as you don’t see useful […]
Despite the current pandemic situation, many managers and executives located remotely are somewhat satisfied with the productivity and quality of their team members. But did you know that by aligning employee goals with business goals, an organization can become even more productive and quality can become more evident? How do you ensure that employee team goals are aligned with business goals? How can you see an increase in productivity levels over the year? Here are a few methods that can help align goals for mutual benefit:
Ensure company goals are loud and clear
Just imagine if no clear organization goals exist, it would become difficult to achieve company results. This is because your employees would have no sense of direction as to what they need to achieve and how they need to accomplish it. Goal-oriented staff members are what you need and by setting business goals, you can offer your employees short-term and long-term targets. The goal or objective must become your company’s milestone that all can share, envision, and strive towards achieving on a daily basis. Try to make it a passion and not something rudimentary or just any number.
Communicate the company strategy and vision persistently
By adopting a more consistent approach, you can most clearly communicate the company strategy to your employees. If you do not have a unified vision and clear direction then your staff would feel uncomfortable and may not envision what you are looking for in your organization. You and the management team need to be explicitly clear on defining company goals, their reason for existing, and any major milestone you need to accomplish both short term and long term.
If staff members are finding it difficult to understand and absorb the role and reason for the existence of your company then most likely they would start to create their own versions and definition of what they can understand. Your company goals must be clear, simple, and easy to articulate and how you wish to accomplish them must be made clear to everyone. There is no reason for staff members to memorize your goals but try to take staff buy-in wherever possible. This way they can also envision your success and see how they can best achieve it.
Break up your goals for easy accomplishment
It is best to sit with your teams and try to break up complex and bigger goals into smaller ones. Allow managers to set their own goals with different team members within the given larger framework as approved by you. A staffer’s goal is usually defined by the number of hours he or she has put in, however, you should also introduce a measurable metric that helps you determine the contribution that the person has made to help achieve the wider company vision and goal. When managers and their team members set their own goals, they become even more challenging and rewarding to both the company as well as the employee. Personal goals quite often act as effective regulators for self-action and that is why they need to be well articulated and defined.
Team motivation and incentives
You can allow employees to remain focused on attaining goals through rewards and incentives. Although, incentives may allow temporary gain, however, it would most certainly grab the attention of your workers. Keep small incentives and rewards once every quarter and this is how you would keep the ball rolling. Regularly, your management team should communicate to its co-workers, progress made in achieving company goals and the middle management team needs to share the kind of contribution each staff member has made towards building the bigger picture.
Hire only the best fit for your organization
The vision of your company should be shared with a larger audience especially with potential employees, who you feel are important contributors in turning your company’s dream into a reality. Staff members should be willing to further spread the message so that it is loud and clear. By hiring only those who are willing to adopt your vision and help you achieve it, you can then make a difference. While hiring ensure that the HR team shortlists people who have the right kind of skill sets to fit your company culture and not those who just fit the basic requirement.
Drive Consistency and Accountability
Did you know that without consistency and accountability your organization system can easily break down? This is where HR can play a very important role. They can help you achieve goal setting by establishing company standards. These standards would be managed by departmental heads. It would be the job of each head to ensure that the company goals are translated well and carried out well. They would offer consistency in each goal-setting so that one common goal is met.
By continuously engaging managers over time, you can help redefine goals and hold them accountable for timelines. This would help guarantee that each business objective is met and is not just put in black and white.
Identify and fill gaps
By now, you should have a better and clearer understanding of where your business is headed and that if you have the right people with the right kind of skills on board who can help you achieve your goals. If in case your employees are not aligned with your business goals, you would need to consider skill development. This may include mentoring, coaching, cross-departmental training, and other education programs. To fill in the gaps, identify openings, and recruit the right staff for the job.
Aligning and hiring should be consistent with your business commitment. Managers at each stage need to be continuously assessing the skill set of the team and should draw current and future plans. This will ensure that skill gaps are identified earlier and plugged in. This way you can ensure that employee goals are best aligned with business goals and that you are in a commanding position always.
