7 Steps for Effective Goal Setting: Set and Achieve Goals

Setting and achieving goals sounds easy on paper, but in reality, it is a process that requires careful strategizing and execution. According to Personnel Psychology, individuals who understand the purpose behind their goals are more likely to accomplish them.

Whether goals are personal or professional, to succeed, you must effectively set them. In a professional environment, achieving goals is linked to individual or business success and incentives in the form of monetary or other performance-linked receivables.

What are some sure-fire ways to set and achieve goals in your capacity as a professional? Let’s find out.

1. Define goals annually

A common mistake many professionals make is defining their goals before a performance review. Instead of hurriedly scrambling to get your goals to ace a performance meeting, define them in advance, preferably at the start of the financial year. Setting goals at the beginning of the financial year helps you achieve your targets more systematically.

2. Define goals targeted at execution

When defining goals for the financial year, do them in a way they can be executed. Often, people set goals to collect rating data to have them approved by the senior management without setting out execution requirements. To set goals and achieve them, it’s essential to see how and why the finish line can be crossed. Identifying ways to act on the goals can help in the process of their achievement.

3. Maintain a simple goal approval workflow

When defining professional goals, you may need to have the workflow vetted by various levels of management. Keeping the workflow process simple can make it easier to get approval. An L1 manager can approve goals, whereas an in-depth audit and insight generation can be undertaken by a business unit head or L2 manager.

4. Enable employees to define better goals & KPIs|

KPIs help employees to measure the effectiveness with which they are achieving business objectives. Enable employees to think about achieving better and more relevant goals and KPIs in a time-bound manner.

5. Define goals in line with what you do, not what you’re expected to do

When defining goals, most people refer to their job descriptions more often than not. It leads to setting goals that aren’t attainable simply because the job description may be far from an employee’s actual responsibilities. Thus, define goals according to daily operations rather than unrealistic goals in line with the job expectation.

6. Keep your KPIs updated via your internal CRM and ERP systems

Many employees aren’t entirely aware of fully utilizing an internal CRM or ERP system to update their KPIs. Organizations usually set KPIs that are required to be achieved by employees, and one of the easiest ways of tracking achievements is by updating these internal CRM and ERP systems. Filling in data helps employees to track goal movement and quantitatively focus on achieving goals.

7. Define your goals in accordance with your industry

Goals need to be identified in line with a professional’s industry. Defining goals that are not aligned with a profession could be harmful to an employee in their quest to attain targets. Let’s take a look at the kind of goals that can be set and reviewed, industry-wise

● Financial Services

Monthly or quarterly are typically set for employees engaged in sales and marketing to be reviewed by executives and managers.
Quarterly or annual goals are typically set for employees that are part of the leadership, support teams, operations teams, HR, etc.
Employees should make it a habit to constantly define expected targets and update achieved targets in their CRM systems.
Conducting quarterly/ half-yearly performance reviews can be beneficial in the financial services industry, where numbers are constantly reviewed.

● Manufacturing

Annual KPIs should be set for workers at a factory level in terms of actual output. An administrative HR team should update KPIs and targets achieved by workers to be constantly aware of how far they have achieved their targets vs how far the goals are yet to be ticked off. For reviewing workers, managers should be proactive in providing direct feedback.
For other employees in a manufacturing setting such as operations, HR, leadership, etc., typically, goals are set quarterly and updated via their ERP systems. For such employees, conducting performance reviews on a quarterly or half-yearly basis is usually beneficial.

● Retail

Store-level employees and managers typically have monthly goals and targets to achieve in a retail setting. These targets are defined and updated within an internal CRM/ERP system. Quarterly goals are typically set for the leadership, sales, HR, support, and operations teams, with performance reviews conducted on a quarterly/ half-yearly basis.

● Information Technology
 
Since IT employees are assigned projects, project completion becomes their goal or target. KPIs may be updated from time to time, as may be relevant to a particular project. Employees may use systems like JIRA to update their project management-related KPIs.

Quarterly goals are typically set for employees engaged in HR, leadership, support, and operations.
Performance reviews may be conducted on a quarterly/ half-yearly basis for employees and project basis for employees depending on each project’s duration.

Source: PeopleStrong