Employee performance objectives

Roly:

Hello. I've got Richard Brereton here from the customer success team at Appraisd, and today we're talking about setting goals for 2023. Because it's January, many organisations, and many of our clients, will be thinking about how they can set themselves up for success for this year. It's going to be an interesting year, there is a challenging business environment and organisations are going to be need to be more aligned and streamlined than than ever before. So here's Richard to discuss some of the points.  

Richard:

The point you made there about alignment I think is is really key. In order for businesses to be as effective as possible and for their staff to be as effective as possible, everybody needs to be aligned to the company objectives and pulling in the right direction. So I think the new year is a really good opportunity for businesses to communicate what their vision and what their objectives are for the year, and then ensure that when employees and managers are sitting down together to set their objectives for the period ahead, those are aligned to the company goal and the company vision that is clearly articulated.

The other thing that's really important is it's it's not really effective anymore to set goals for a 12 month period and just review them at the end of the year. Things change quickly, as we've seen particularly over the last couple of years, so, I think it's important for people to sit down regularly, review those goals, review the progress against them. Is there anything that's stopping them from achieving them, or do they need to be changed in any way, so that people can continually review not just their performance, but also all the activities that they're working on still relevant and still aligned to what the business is looking to achieve?

Roly:

And actually, when I talk to chief executives or boards about setting goals and setting that vision strategy for the future, that all goes really well. Except then there's a sort of paranoia that comes up sometimes, which is, okay, we've communicated this, we've sent around PowerPoint slides and things like that, but do people actually just then forget about it immediately, just carry on doing what they've always done? Now, how do you make sure that people are thinking about that strategy, day in and day out, when they're making decisions perhaps on their own at home and they need to choose between A or B and which one is going to contribute to the strategy?

Richard:

I think transparency and consistency are both really key for that. First of all, make sure that you communicate that vision, that strategy to employees, and the reasons behind it as well. And then just make that front and centre. So when people are sitting down to have performance reviews or set objectives, give them the strategy document, whether that's linking to it within your performance management system or posting all internal SharePoint documents and things like that, just make it really easy for people to access the strategy at any time, so that they get used to the fact that that needs to be front and centre in everything that they're doing. And also you need to lead by example. Senior leaders need to set their objectives, which aligns the strategy, they need to make sure when they're sitting down with that team that they set objectives that link to the strategy and make sure that they are really setting a good example when when setting their objectives, their team's objectives, and hopefully that will filter down throughout the organisation.  

‍Roly:

Absolutely. And of course, if you're a client of ours, make sure that when people are setting objectives in Appraised, that they are able to choose from your strategic objectives or the departmental objectives. And if you don't have that set up, please do get in touch, I think that's really vital and it's actually a great way to communicate what they are, if people have missed the big "all hands company meeting" or the PowerPoint decks. Actually using Appraisd as that communications tool is very effective.  

Richard:

Yeah, it's really easy todo it, as you said Roly, you can have the drop down list where you pick which of the high level company, or even down to the department departmental level, goals that your individual goals should link to. You can also have links to a strategy deck as well within that, and not only that, it's easy for managers, HR and senior leaders to run reports and see exactly who has goals, how many they have, which departmental or organisational objectives they are linked to... And you can see exactly what's going on throughout the business, and also the progress statuses of each of those goals as well. So, for example, you could look at one of the company goals, pull up and see who has objectives that link into that, and how are they currently performing against those objectives. So, hopefully that gets you insights a little bit earlier on, in terms of the likelihood as a business to achieve those objectives and what are the contributing factors?

Roly:

Yeah, and then so of course, if you discover that a division or a team or a department is struggling to set goals or not engaged with their goals, you can do a very kind of tactical intervention with them. You get everyone in a room to a workshop with them just to set goals for that department rather than just sending out, you know, the usual, here's how to set smart goal... You know, just actually do a workshop with them, get them all in the system then in that.

Richard:

Yeah, exactly. And it's it's really important for managers and senior leaders to be managers and understand what people are working on, where they need help and take interventions where where needed.

Roly:

Okay. Thanks a lot, Richard.

Richard:

Thanks Roly.