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The setting of employee goals is useful in a number of ways. Firstly, it provides a useful means of measuring business success in a qualitative rather than a quantitative way. Secondly, it provides a direct means of feedback between employees and the employer. It is important when setting goals to ensure that the following rules are adhered to.

1. The goals have to be achievable.

One of the purposes for goal setting is that it provides employees with a tangible means to improve their performance. Therefore, employee goals should primarily serve as motivational benchmarks rather than as punitive, punishment based goals. It is tantamount to the success of employee goals that they are framed within realistic production targets.

2. The goals should be flexible.

In the majority of cases, the modern workplace has become more flexible, with employees doing a great deal more varied work than previously. Targets and goal setting should reflect this trend towards greater flexibility. Rather than simply saying that an employee should produce greater numbers of a certain product, it has become necessary for the employer to look at performance in a more varied light. Examples of this include performance-based annual reviews, which are useful in strengthening feedback between management and other departments.

3. Employee goals should be based on company, rather than individual goals.

In the great majority of cases, a company benefits if everybody is working together in the same direction. Although some sales-based goals are built around direct competition with employees, the goals are still directed toward company policy. While individual departments can set up competitive climates where there are tangible and identifiable quantities involved, it is considerably more cumbersome and awkward to set interdepartmental goals, as often specific departments that by nature perform less effectively at certain things begin to feel ostracised from the company. Company policy, therefore, has to be prioritised in any goal-setting rationale.

4. Goals should build upon existing communicative frameworks.

Often, goal-setting is adopted by management in order to measure the successes and failings of separate departments and individuals in the business. While goal setting can often provide a useful gauge for measuring performance, it is essential that a business uses these figures in a positive way. There is nothing more disillusioning for an employee in a company to receive goals from a management that doesn't communicate with staff. As such, goals should take on board input from staff themselves, and the achievement of these goals should, in most cases, be a collective thing.

Overall, it is important that goals are achievable by staff. Their purpose, which is to motivate staff to be more productive and to allow management an opportunity to increase the levels of communication between various departments, should be seen as a central pivot in goal management. Management should not set goals without acquiring considerable feedback from employees themselves. This should be done in order to ensure that goals serve to motivate rather than disillusion employees, and to ensure that the company is oriented towards overall, rather than departmental or individual success.

Learn more about this author, Paul Stanway.
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