Making personal New Year’s resolutions is a great thing to do for yourself but setting up resolutions for your employees is a much trickier thing to pull off. Setting goals for your team to achieve in the New Year is a more holistic approach and typically gets better results.
Aside from helping your business to attain its objectives, setting goals with your staff members can increase worker engagement by making certain that every team member understands their role in the big picture. When you set goals correctly, it saves resources and time while boosting efficiency.
Therefore, it’s critical to set aside time to think about essential goals for your company, your team, and your employees that can be achieved in the year ahead. Your goal-setting process should be thorough and easy to understand. Ideally, you should end up with a list of around five critical goals for the year.
Below is a short list of suggestions on the best way to develop your list of goals.
Start from the Bottom
Instead of taking a top-down approach to setting goals for your team, it’s better to use a bottom-up approach.
With your company’s mission and goals in mind, ask your employees about goals they would like to achieve as a team. Start this conversation by looking back at the year that was and identifying any goals that were not achieved but could be in the new year. Also, discuss which performance metrics were being met and which ones were not. Be sure to ask your team about potential blind spots or obstacles that management has been overlooking.
Set S.M.A.R.T Goals
One popular goal-setting strategy is called SMART – which involves setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-related.
Specific goals are much easier to attain than vague, poorly defined goals. Measurable goals are goals that can be broken down into milestones, which can be used to track progress. Attainable goals are goals that appear to be a good use of time and resources. Relevant goals are meaningful to both the company and your individual team members. Time-related goals have a deadline, which acts as motivation.
Make Plans
Once you have identified your goals, you must figure out how you’re going to achieve them. Since your goals will be “measurable”, you should build your plans around the specific milestones and the ways to track progress toward those milestones. Your plans should also include ways to ensure that employees have all the tools they need to succeed.
Consider Support Methods and Rewards
Once you have set goals for your team, you shouldn’t just wash your hands of the entire thing and walk away. It is essential for you to provide whatever support you can to your team to help them achieve the goals you set together. It’s also important to consider how to reward your team for achieving both goals and small milestones.
We Can Support Your Team’s Success
At SMCI, we support the success of company leaders and their teams by providing custom staffing solutions. Please contact us today to find out how we can help you and your team.
