Helping employees prioritize and set strong goals is essential for business growth. Planning what your workforce should achieve in 2024 helps create a foundation for success.

Encouraging managers to work with employees on goal-setting provides short-term steps that inspire and motivate them to attain the company’s long-term vision. The results include higher employee engagement, productivity, and performance. These factors strengthen employee morale, attraction and retention, and the bottom line.

Follow these guidelines to help your employees prioritize and set strong goals!

Align Employee Goals with Company Objectives

Tying employee goals to your organization’s growth strategy shows how each role contributes to the big picture. This clarification provides guidance and motivation for employee engagement and goal attainment.  

Encourage Employees to Develop Job-Specific Goals

Ask managers to help their employees create goals centered around their roles. Having employees decide which areas to develop in empowers them to elevate their performance.

Suggestions for job-specific goals include:

Develop SMART Goals

Employee goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART):

• Clarify exactly what should be achieved and why.
• Determine what the measurements of progress and success will be.
• Ensure each challenge can be overcome in a reasonable amount of time.
• Include the benefit of each accomplishment for the employee and the company.
• Create a sense of urgency to stay on track and reach each objective.

Examples of SMART Goals

Employee goals might focus on performance improvement or professional development to enhance business strategies.

Examples of HR department employee goals that focus on performance improvement include:

• Attend two recruitment events per month to improve the company’s visibility to attract candidates or interns.
• Suggest resources or tools that can improve overall employee empowerment.
• Reduce call wait times by 15% over the next six months to elevate customer service ratings.

Examples of employee goals that focus on professional development include:

• Network with three company leaders every six months to understand other areas of the organization more clearly.
• Finish all management training courses in the company’s learning management system before the next performance review.
• Participate in industry events at least twice a year and share the findings during team meetings.

Do You Need Help with Hiring?

Aligning employee goals with company objectives supports business growth. Also, encouraging employees to develop job-specific goals helps increase motivation, engagement, and performance. Additionally, creating SMART goals increases the odds of employees attaining them.

If you need help with hiring, Arlington Resources can provide you with experienced HR professionals to help reach your goals. Find out more today.