An important part of any attempt to implement performance management is employee goal setting. For performance management to be effective, the goal of each team or group (and the individual employees within the teams) needs to be aligned with the organisational goals.
And this necessarily involves eliciting the input of your employees and facilitating a goal-setting process for each team within the organisation regularly, and the development and maintenance of a system of performance management (and measurement) at the team level.
Communication of Organisational Goals
Each employee needs to know what the organisation is actually trying to achieve, and have a good understanding of how what they do contributes to those goals.
But before you can offer that information to your employees, you need to have a thorough understanding of it yourself.
Do you understand how all of the processes and activities within your organisation contribute to your overall goals?
Spending a bit of time analysing (at least) the production processes before embarking on employee goal setting is time well spent, and you might be surprised by the results of your analysis!
Defining the Group or Team Purpose
Although the organisational goals will be set at a higher level and cannot be altered by lower-level employees, there are good reasons for allowing employees at this level to determine for themselves (within reason) how their work-group will contribute to achieving those goals.
It is also a good way to identify opportunities for up-skilling individuals within the team and to plan training or learning opportunities to improve the team’s productivity.
Topics for Discussion by the Team
Some of the things you and your team might like to do during your goal-setting session include:
- Creating a Team Mission Statement
- Developing Team Values
- Identifying Critical Processes
- Setting Team Goals
- Setting Individual Goals
Tips for Managing an Employee Goal-Setting Process
Set the parameters before you start by outlining what the outcomes of the goal-setting process should be, and if at all possible, bring in an external facilitator.
One of the real benefits of allowing employees to set their own goals in the workplace is the higher level of commitment and motivation to achieve the goals. If the session is run by an internal manager, your employees may feel that the mission statement and goals have been imposed on them, making the whole exercise a waste of time. Participate by all means, but do so as a fellow team member, not as the boss!
That means that you have one vote just like everyone else and no power of veto when it comes to the wording of the mission statement, or deciding on the team values or even the goals (providing they do actually align with the organisational goals).