Pathway to Success: How to Set Goals for Your Team Next Year

Goal setting is a powerful tool, allowing you to give your team direction while motivating them to excel. However, setting goals for your team can be challenging. Often, it isn’t easy to determine which goals will be most effective at a glance. As a result, some managers miss the mark, choosing objectives that don’t spur the productivity and engagement gains they had in mind.

Thankfully, by using the right approach to goal setting, you can get better results. Here are some tips that can help you set goals for your team next year.

Talk to Your Team

If you want the goals you choose to be effective, you need to engage your team and encourage them to excel. The easiest way to get some insights is to speak with each employee about their career objectives and professional interests.

That way, you can learn more about their unique motivations, allowing you to select goals that align with what’s driving them. By doing so, your priorities will match theirs, increasing the odds that they’ll fully dedicate themselves to achieving that objective.

Show the Connection

In some cases, goals chosen by management seem arbitrary to employees. Often, this is because it isn’t easy to see how the objective connects to the bigger picture, making the target seem inconsequential.

Since most goals are selected for a reason, management needs to go the extra mile and make sure that employees understand why it’s a priority. Showing the connection between the target and the bigger picture makes the goal more meaningful, increasing the odds that the employees will also view it as important.

Go Beyond Profitability

For many companies, goals center on financial gain. While the company succeeding does benefit employees, helping a business increase its profits isn’t particularly motivating if the workers aren’t getting a piece of that money. As a result, the goals need to provide something other than financial gain for the organization.

In some cases, associating an incentive with the objective is enough. If employees receive a reward for hitting the target, that alone can be sufficiently motivating.

Otherwise, you need to imbue the work with greater meaning. For example, you could demonstrate how it helps customers, the community, or their colleagues. If the impact is significant enough, the ability to make that kind of difference may serve as a form of reward.

Do You Need More Team Members to Achieve Your Goals? Hamilton-Ryker Can Help

In 2021, Hamilton-Ryker is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. As hiring experts, we understand what it takes to build a thriving team, and we use that knowledge to help client companies secure the talent they need to excel.

At Hamilton-Ryker, our goal is to be the go-to workforce management solution for companies in any industry. We aim to offer employers unparalleled access to top-tier professionals, streamlining hiring processes while boosting the candidate experience.

If you need more team members to achieve your company’s goals, the Hamilton-Ryker team wants to hear from you. Contact us today.