Employee Performance Goals: Setting Employment Goals that Matter

Setting employment goals can be a challenging activity for both employees and managers. It is important that these employee performance goals are supportive of the individual’s interests and skills, while aligning with the mission and results needed for the company.

Unfortunately, setting employment goals often falls to the back burner when employees are focused on the daily grind of immediate tasks that need to be addressed. If the day is filled with ongoing tasks and responsibilities, it can be hard for the person to work on employee goals that will make a difference in their skill set or results.

If you are striving to improve goal setting as part of an employee performance management process, then you need to implement a few strategies:

Identify Business and Personal Priorities

The business priorities can usually be outlined by reading the company mission statement and reviewing the job description of the employee. But these details don’t outline the day-to-day activities that are handled by the employee. At the same time, each employee has goals and desires for career advancement and upward movement in the company.

It is important that you find a balance between the needs of the company and the personal priorities when determining the best employment goals for your workers. Identify the areas where these elements overlap, then focus the goals on those skills.

Look at Factors within the Area of the Employee’s Control

If you suggest employment goals that are outside of the person’s control, then you are simply setting that individual up for failure. For example, you might think that it is a good idea to set a goal for the employee to close 30 deals a month, because those numbers add up to the monthly goals for the company.

But, if the employee is only provided 40 leads per month, then it might not be realistic for that person to close 75% of their leads. As a manager or business owner, you need to either provide more leads and training to the employee or set the bar a little lower to make it possible for the person to reach the goal.

Strive for Progress, Not Perfection

Mistakes happen, and you can’t expect each employee to provide flawless performance at work. Instead of causing the person to feel overwhelmed because they will never reach perfection, look for ways to encourage incremental progress by selecting the best employee performance goals that matter for your company .

Start by evaluating their current job performance as well as their potential, and set employment goals accordingly. Then, guide the employee through the process of identifying possible areas of improvement. Finally, have a performance appraisal system in place that makes it easy to track the ongoing results to show the progress that is achieved.

The right employee performance software can provide an effective tool to set goals and measure performance. PrismHR Performance Management provides great tools for managers and employees.

Talk to us today to learn more about the ways that we can help with your employee performance goal setting and employee management efforts.