It’s no secret that an alarming number of people in today’s workforce aren’t engaged in their jobs. This isn’t just an American trend, either – a Gallup report from January 2015 found only 13 percent of employees worldwide said they were enthusiastic and committed about their work.
At BetterWorks, we think it’s time to change this. Management and business leaders can inspire and empower their employees through the use of goal setting software and ongoing performance development™. Here are three ways effective goals benefit employees:
Give Clear Objectives In Line with Company Values
Each business has its own targets, whether that be in terms of profits, expansion or any other indicator of success. However, employees don’t always know where they fit in terms of these objectives. Since they don’t know the company goals, they can’t work out the best way to help organizations meet them. Thus, they do their work aimlessly and often unproductively.
“With OKRs, everyone is aligned in working toward the same purpose.”
Collaborating with management and creating objectives and key results helps employees refocus and work towards OKRs, or objectives and key results, that benefit them and the business as a whole. Because any employee can see OKRs, everyone is aligned in working toward the same purpose.
Show Leaders are Invested in Their Workforce
The best OKRs are the result of teamwork and a continuous conversation between managers and employees. These goals can’t be established once and never discussed again. On the contrary, today’s workforce wants constant feedback. Management should acknowledge this trend and support their employees with ongoing performance development. With periodic check-ins and goal assessments, they prove their commitment to helping each employee succeed.
Focus On Results and Agency
OKRs take the spotlight off of day-to-day minutiae and put it where it rightfully belongs: on outcomes. Employees know how they work best, and individual objectives let them do so without the fear that management is monitoring their every step.
“You hire people, you give them outcomes, you measure results,” said Joe McCune, a professor of Human Resource Management at Rutgers, during a conversation with Bloomberg Business. “How they do that and how they achieve that is up to them.”
This type of agency goes a long way towards empowering and engaging employees. Work feels less like a chore dictated by others and more like a creative problem to be solved.
Today’s business can’t assume old management styles will fit today’s changing workplace environment. Employees demand more from the companies they work with, and those that support them will see the biggest benefits.