The primary goal and focus of talent management in an organization is to recruit, hire, retain, and develop one’s employees. An aspect of people development that often gets overlooked is goal setting.
By establishing clear goals, you can get your employees and management on the same page in terms of mission and objective, keep employees engaged in their career development, and increase productivity and output. All of these things tie into people development, which is a company’s perspective on growing people to fulfill important roles in the future. That’s where goal setting comes in.
Aligns the Business Needs with the Needs of the People
These days employees desire more feedback from their leadership team, especially millennials. It’s become more and more important for workers to know where they stand and feel like they are meeting expectations. What you want is goal alignment. Where management and the employees know what is expected of each other. You need to balance the needs of the business with the employee’s desires.
When employees are meeting their goals, they get positive feedback to reinforce their efforts and when goals are not being met they can be addressed, and steps can be taken to help them meet their goals. Your Cornerstone system has the ability to help you do this. In the performance module, users can align the goals of the organization and even those of their management team, to goals they already have set or new ones. Managers have the ability to assign goals to team members for an individual or create shared goals.
Keeps Employees Engaged with Their Careers
People expect development, but they need more. These days employees want to know that they have mobility in their position and the opportunity for advancement, especially millennials. In his 2018 Convergence keynote address, Cornerstone CEO Adam Miller put it this way in reference to millennials,
In Cornerstone’s Career Center there’s an application that enables users to track their progress, giving them an idea of how far they are from reaching their goals. Visualization paths can show the typical progression for someone in their position. You could even customize the steps required to further their career, or showcase recommended positions to highlight opportunities that are available in other areas of your organization that they can apply for.
When a position is posted you can customize the requirements so that candidates can see how they stack up to the requirements. For the skills gap, recommended learning content can help them develop and grow to be a good fit for the role. All of these things let your employee see where they fit in down the road in your organization which improves talent retention.
Increases Productivity & Output
To have a productive workforce you need to establish time-focused business goals. They say a goal without a plan is just a wish; I’ll add that a plan without a timeline is futile. When you set a due date for anything it gives the task more urgency and importance, which makes your goals more effectively.
By taking the time to set goals with your employees, and helping them see how their individual goals link to organizational needs and business objectives, you can increase productivity in your business. In Cornerstone, you have the ability to see what’s going on with your team and where they are in terms of goal progress. Its recommended for managers to have quarterly check-ins and touchpoints to establish regular communication with employees. This encourages managers to take ownership of their teams and gives the people more accountability.
Goals are not only important for your personal development but for your business as well. When done right, setting goals can be the thing that moves your organization in the right direction.
Want to learn how you incorporate goal-setting into your organization?
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