Berfu Ulusoy
Berfu is an Employee Experience Specialist at Zavvy. She has a background in learning psychology and helps our customers get the most out of their people enablement programs.
Setting corporate goals is pretty straightforward, but achieving them is always an uphill battle for most organizations. In fact, only 5% of small businesses achieved all their goals in 2020.
There are certainly many reasons for this low percentage, but employee misalignment is often among the culprits.
When there's no buy-in from employees or goals are not communicated clearly, it becomes hard to drive employees toward fulfilling organizational goals.
The solution: align employee goals with the organization's goals.
But be aware that employees want to advance their careers. Provide opportunities to learn new skills and grow in their roles, and they'll be more inclined toward your organization and helping achieve its goals.
Here's how to align organizational goals with employee goals.
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Organizational alignment is the unity between your company's goals and how all members work together to achieve business objectives.
To understand organizational alignment, imagine your company is a system.
For a system to function efficiently, the components must work together smoothly.
Similarly, each team within your company must sync to run your company efficiently.
Organizational alignment ensures success at every level, encouraging a positive work culture and higher retention rates. Plus, employees who understand and share company goals feel more integrated into the company.
Misalignment begins with having the right person in the wrong role.
The results?
Goals set the tone for your organizational strategy.
When employees, teams, and organizational goals align, clarity sets in.
Each team understands company goals and knows its roles in achieving them. Plus, they understand why several levels exist within the organization and how they fit in.
With this clarity, an employee takes pride in their work, and teams become motivated because they know what they're doing and why they're doing them.
A Twitter user asked, "People stay working at Microsoft for like 15 - 30 years. What's going on over there?"
One of the respondents highlighted that, for Microsoft employees, "it's easy to see the impact your contributions make in the real world."
In a misaligned organization, employees have questions and complaints about almost everything.
Why are we using a flat structure?
It's the hierarchy. It takes too many layers to get things done.
When things go wrong, employees will point fingers at leadership. That's because they don't understand "why." So there is no clarity, no alignment, no job satisfaction.
Employees are likely to become engaged when they know the organization cares about their personal goals and development and how it impacts the company. Employees want to know you have their interests in mind from day one on the job. Aligning organizational goals and team goals with employee goals helps you achieve that.
The highest-performing teams collaborate and communicate effectively. When employees understand the purpose of a project, know what's in it for them, and are effectively trained, they become highly productive and ultimately contribute to team success.
Team development training can foster engagement and cooperation, leading to a much more cohesive and strong team.
According to Gartner, employee performance increases by 22% when individual goals align with organizational and employee needs.
People give 100% of their creativity, focus, and motivation when they understand why their work matters – when they can connect their day-to-day activities to the organization's purpose.
Plus, when the entire organization understands the purpose and values and consistently practices them, it becomes easier to achieve goals, and in turn, performance is high.
➡️ Discover 16 proven methods to improve employee performance.
It's no easy task to set goals with employees at the center. When poorly done, employees can be all over the place, struggling to achieve goals.
Tip #1: Start by setting 3-5 essential goals based on the company vision and growth stage.
For instance, if you're a startup, that could mean more striving for brand awareness and customer acquisition programs.
Tip #2: Top management should develop a strategy based on the company's vision. But make priority setting a collaborative effort. Employees will get invested in your organizational goals when they're part of them from the start.
Tip #3: Some ways of allowing employees to have a say in setting organizational goals are:
Tip #4: Break top goals down into divisions and departments, so managers of each team can set their goals for employees based on the vision.
For instance:
Tip #5: Before defining a goal, it's essential to consider "the why." Any goal will be challenging to achieve if "the why" is unclear.
For instance, if the board says, "our goal for next year is to increase 30%, clearly define the "why." Why is it 30% and not 50%?
Tip #6: Describe the goals in detail and ensure everyone is on board.
💡 Get inspired with our additional resource on SMART goals for employees with 35 examples for different departments.
Does your work culture foster unity between everyone?
Is collaboration a thing, or do employees compete instead?
How's the communication style?
Your internal communication is critical in ensuring that employees and teams understand the company objectives, strategy, and responsibilities.
To develop a company culture that supports alignment, incorporate values assessment into development conversations and performance appraisals.
For example, reward employees and leaders who understand and align with the company's values, as Zappos does.
Here are some questions to assess your communication culture:
Tip: Adopt a knowledge-sharing culture where employees learn from each other, and team experts receive a chance to shine.
Leaders set the tone for the entire organization.
So, leadership buy-in helps establish credibility and legitimacy for your organizational goals.
When your leaders fully commit and visibly support specific organizational goals, it sends a clear signal to your employees.
As a result, they are more likely to trust that they are important and worth striving towards.
Plus, leadership buy-in helps prioritize and allocate resources toward achieving specific goals. This can also mean investing in specific development programs for employees.
So you cannot skip getting your leaders on board with your people processes.
For example, if your goal is to enroll employees in training, list why it is essential and how it contributes to organizational goals.
Each organization moves at the speed of trust. So, if leaders don't exhibit values included in the vision and mission statement, employees can lose trust in them.
A lack of confidence in leadership will lead to disengagement and poor performance.
And if your people do not trust your organization, it will be hard to stand out in your industry.
Your leaders must convey an authentic message that moves the employee to buy into the organization's vision. They should also create opportunities to connect more deeply with their employees.
Tip #1: Make your vision statement visible so everyone can see and run with it. Share it consistently and frequently.
Tip #2: Do not forget to share your company vision during your new hire onboarding process. You can do it through meetings or a company-wide event.
Tip #3: Ask employees to reflect on how their work relates to the company vision during your performance appraisal process.
Tip #4: Hire people who believe in your "why" and inspire them. Great companies hire motivated people and engage them from the get-go.
Tip #5: Use storytelling and examples to bring the mission and vision to life and make it more relatable for employees.
For example, you could share stories of how the company has positively impacted customers or the community.
Another idea would be to share examples of how employees have embodied the company's values in their work.
Employees sometimes feel that goals are unattainable and too vague. Hence, it's vital to encourage and motivate them to achieve success toward organizational and developmental goals.
To achieve this:
Every employee should know:
Tip: Define roles from the preboarding and onboarding stages. Role clarity will boost your new hire's engagement and time-to-productivity.
To ensure role clarity:
Helping employees achieve developmental goals makes them happier and increases their motivation, engagement, and productivity.
To help your people achieve their goals:
Set SMART Goals; each goal you assign should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time specific.
For example:
Tip: It's also important to set goals based on strengths and provide personal and professional development opportunities.
➡️ Discover 14 examples of developmental goals and ways to achieve them.
To help employees achieve their goals:
👯 Learn how to create a workplace mentorship program in five steps.
Measuring performance helps to improve efficiency and respond to roadblocks on time.
Tip: You can use performance reviews to track progress toward certain goals and alignment with company values.
Embrace both positive and negative feedback loops:
Tip: Use surveys to collect valuable information on products and services from customers and employee feedback forms to review employee job satisfaction and engagement.
A transparency culture within the workplace increase trust with both employees and clients. Discuss growth plans, new milestones, and pitfalls. Share weekly reports and updates about revenues and performance.
➡️ Our client, DataGuard, uses Zavvy for sharing company-wide updates. Their product marketing team sends out a short monthly journey with training on product updates. This way, everyone is on top of changes.
According to McKinsey, "agile organizations instill a common purpose and use new data to give decision rights to the teams closest to the information."
Thus, if your goals aren't aligned to present realities and market needs, modify them to fit perfectly.
You'll lose employees' interest if you stick to the same plan without considering present trends and realities.
Celebrating goals helps to keep staff engaged and boosts morale.
After achieving specific goals, celebrate the teams that played a crucial role.
Tip #1: Reward employees and teams. Throw in-person and virtual celebrating parties (for remotely working teams).
Tip #2: Give key employees special mentions and shout-outs on social.
Use performance improvement plans to point out specific areas that need improvements. But don't stop at the planning level. Instead, provide guidance or mentorship to support employees in addressing their performance challenges.
Tip: Make sure you include a clear list of expectations and timelines.
For instance, if you need them to improve on communication, let them know what good communication looks like.
Ensuring organizational alignment involves tracking performance, giving proper feedback, communicating well, and having continuous development strategies.
These are all elements of Zavvy's employee enablement platform:
Zavvy helps you structure onboarding, feedback, and training better.
Get started with a free demo and consultation with our team.
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Setting corporate goals is pretty straightforward, but achieving them is always an uphill battle for most organizations. In fact, only 5% of small businesses achieved all their goals in 2020.
There are certainly many reasons for this low percentage, but employee misalignment is often among the culprits.
When there's no buy-in from employees or goals are not communicated clearly, it becomes hard to drive employees toward fulfilling organizational goals.
The solution: align employee goals with the organization's goals.
But be aware that employees want to advance their careers. Provide opportunities to learn new skills and grow in their roles, and they'll be more inclined toward your organization and helping achieve its goals.
Here's how to align organizational goals with employee goals.
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