Every leader and employer knows how important it is to be creating goals and objectives. One of the major reasons is to create a healthy competitive workplace. This article explains.
Studies show that employees are more motivated when they achieve the ultimate goal. This can only be possible when there are smaller goals to achieve.
Unfortunately, one mistake many leaders make is that they set unrealistic goals. An unrealistic goal is a source of stress for workers. This usually leads to low productivity and performance.
A realistic plan can be difficult to achieve, but employees will strive to do it once it’s achievable. The workers might even break these goals down into smaller tasks to make it easier for them.
With that, what are the benefits of creating goals and objectives for your business? How do you set these goals? We can assure you that this isn’t difficult. All it requires are the right steps.
The advantages of creating realistic goals and objectives in a workplace
A leader should set goals that align with the bigger goal of the company or organisation. When you do this, an employee will be more productive and efficient. More so, their performance will contribute to the growth and development of the company.
There are different reasons why you need to set goals in the workplace. Some of those reasons found below:
It motivates employees
Employees work better when there’s a goal in place. It is much easier and faster to get things done if you’re sure that you’re not wasting time. If you want to get your employees to do more and do better, create achievable goals. Then you can also reward workers after they achieve those goals.
Knowing that there is a possible reward for the workers is enough motivation for them to work better. Before you know it, you and your employees are making progress and smashing those goals.
It provides direction
When there’s no goal, there’s no direction, and when there’s no direction, there’s no progress. Goal setting ensures that employees know where they’re going. When workers have a direction, they can make decisions to ensure that they get there.
As an employer, goal setting is a way of getting your employees to make better decisions. Suppose your goal is to reduce office expenses in a year. Then your workers would know that they can’t afford to buy some office equipment unless they must.
It increases productivity
Measurable goals increase productivity. You should be able to measure the progress of your goals. This way, employees can always stay on track and ensure that they align with the set goals.
When you set goals, employees always look for the easiest way to get them done. In that case, they’ll reduce distractions and pay attention to the task at hand. This focus makes your employees more productive. They will also do things more efficiently.
It limits stress
If you are not creating goals and objectives, there’s a high chance that your employees will not achieve much. They will keep moving from one task to another without accomplishing anything. This will affect efficiency, and your employees will always feel tired or stressed.
Once you set goals, everyone in the company or organisation will know what to do. Hence, there’ll be no need to engage in stressful and unproductive activities.
It saves time
Goals usually come with a step-by-step process to achieve them. When you break down goals into achievable steps, employees will stay focused. No one will waste time doing other things that don’t matter. For example, if the goal is to generate more sales from old customers, no one will waste time reaching out to prospects.
In addition to that, goal setting ensures that things are done quickly. Then, you can all focus on doing something else. After completing one goal, you can always move on to the next goal.
How to set goals for your organisation
Setting clear goals and objectives is easy, for long as you know how to go about it. You can set the right goals with the following tips:
Prioritise your goals
As a company, there are so many goals to achieve at the same time. You want to get new clients, keep old clients, increase revenue, and so on. All these can become overwhelming if you don’t know what your top priorities are.
When it comes to creating goals and objectives, you need to identify what are your top priorities. An excellent way to achieve this would be to use the SWOT analysis. This analysis identifies your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Once you can identify each part of this analysis, you’ll know your priorities and set goals in line with these priorities. That way, you can focus on essential objectives instead of too many objectives.
Ask for your team’s input
As much as it’s your business, you also have to realise and acknowledge that people under you work hard every day to bring your visions to life. In essence, these people are your most valuable asset, and you should treat them as such.
Aside from the fact that your workers do a lot of work, they also interact with your customers. Hence, they have an idea of what’s working and what isn’t. After the SWOT analysis, it is advisable to sit down with your workers and get feedback. These people will let you know if your top goals are the best for the moment or not. They may also have valuable insights that you didn’t think of before.
Set SMART goals
Now that you have your top goals to work with, you can develop these goals from mere ideas to actionable plans. When doing this, you have to make sure these goals are SMART. What does this mean? It means that your goals have to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely:
- Specific: Have clear and established aims, not vague plans that will overwhelm everyone. For example, getting ten new customers for your new office branch is a specific goal;
- Measurable: Set measurable goals. This will help you assess these goals’ progress and success or completion. For example, you can easily track the number of new customers that the new branch acquired. You can also track the profit made off of these customers;
- Achievable: Goals must be attainable, not unrealistic, and almost impossible. Unrealistic goals become the bedrock for failure in the company. To get new customers, the company can inform the public by sharing flyers around the office area;
- Relevant: These goals must align with the company’s primary purpose. That means that these goals must contribute to the bigger picture of the company. For example, the primary aim of getting those new customers is to increase profit and generate more revenue, and;
- Timely: These goals must have a realistic time frame. Don’t set an extended deadline for simple tasks and short deadlines for complex ones. When you do this, it slows down productivity and makes the workers unmotivated. For instance, you can plan to get these ten new customers in six months.
Measure progress
The vital part of creating goals and objectives is accomplishing them. Before that, you won’t know how close or how far you are from achieving them if you don’t keep track of those goals. That is why you have to put in a system to ensure that you’re aware of the progress.
There are different ways you can achieve this. You can create a spreadsheet or use other project management tools to keep track of goals and objectives. The tools help make sure that everyone is progressing toward the goals you’ve set.
You can schedule meetings with your workers to find out how well things are coming along. They can let you in on the steps they’re taking or have taken to achieve the company’s goals. In meetings like this, you can discuss and resolve challenges that may slow down progress. Some of the workers can come up with new ideas to quickly achieve those plans.
Another way you can measure progress is by setting key performance indicators (KPIs). Your KPIs are generally indicators that show how well you’re doing with your goals. A KPI could be how many flyers the company distributed for publicity or how many customers visited in a day. This will help keep track of how well you’re doing in getting new customers.
Build good business habits
As a business owner who wants to see their business’s goals accomplished, you have to build a healthy business habit for yourself and the team. Doing this will encourage productivity in the company.
Automate as much as you can; don’t slow down the team with tasks that you can outsource. Do you need a reminder for a business meeting or schedule? Use online to-do lists to organise tasks, set deadlines and reminders. Do you need to get an item delivered to a place? You can use the services of a delivery management system.
Besides, you can set up regular meetings with your employees. These meetings will be for reviews and performance analysis. Once you’ve put these in place, you can focus on the more essential things to help you achieve your goals faster.
In Summary
The difference between a thriving organisation and an unsuccessful one is goal setting. A business that sets goals will thrive more than a business that doesn’t.
As a business owner, you should set achievable goals for your business. Employees work better when there are achievable and realistic goals. It even gets better when you put incentives in place to encourage workers for a job well done.
Other reasons why you should set goals are:
- It encourages productivity;
- It motivates workers;
- It saves time;
- It reduces stress, and;
- It provides direction.
Much more than creating goals and objectives, it’s important that you achieve them – else, there’s no point. Build a system around those goals to ensure that they are not just words on paper but a reality.
About the Author
Precious is a content writer from Scurri, a carrier management platform that works on powering orders, shipping, and delivery for various retailers to more than 700 carriers. She has volunteered and worked as a content creator in various organisations. In doing that, she has gained enough experience writing for different niches. She often writes articles on marketing trends and insights.
