Employees generally want to know what is expected of them and how they are going to be measured. The start of a new year or new fiscal period is often the time when we establish employee accountability and set objectives with employees, aligned of course to those of the department and organization.

However, with the best intentions, objectives are often forgotten within a few weeks or months.

Why is this?

It is because once the objectives are set; it is often back to the normal day to day routine work not necessarily aimed at an end result or agreed objective. One of Steven Covey’s habits of highly effective people applies here. “Start with the end in mind”.

In other words, know each day what overall objectives are to be attained and just as importantly, why. We see it very important to involve your employees in setting their objectives. Another significant reason employees often fall short on achieving certain objectives is because their manager does not manage employees to these objectives. It is not unusual these days to see managers so over loaded with their own work that the people management part of their responsibilities goes ignored. By “managing to these objectives”, I mean the process of periodic performance review feedback, where you would purposefully look at the objectives set, progress to those objectives and helping to ensure the objectives are indeed met.  This is where the solid people management acumen pays off. In the performance management section of The HR Power Center, everything is there to help managers and companies do proper job descriptions, set performance objectives, manage/coach in the interim, and do the formal year-end review.

There are lots of ways managers can make sure their employees’ objectives are achieved. Here are five of them:

1. Encourage SMART goals are completed

2. Help with prioritization

3. Remind employees regularly about objectives, milestones and due dates

4. Align employee and organizational goals

5. Monitor progress by having regular ongoing performance review meetings

In fact, our website has a number of documents that can help you and your managers do a better job of goal management.