Employees generally want to know what is expected of them and how they are going to be measured.

However, even 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 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People applies here. “Start with the end in mind”.

In other words, as a manager, 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. This is a key driver for attaining high levels of employee engagement. 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 gets ignored. By “managing to these objectives”, we 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 engage employees by doing proper job descriptions, setting performance objectives, managing & coaching in the interim, and doing the formal year-end review.

There are many employee engagement activities managers can do to ensure their employees are engaged and their objectives are achieved.

Here are five of them:

1. Encourage the establishment of SMART objectives

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

The HR Power Centre has all the “what to do’s” and “how to do’s” that can help you and your managers do a better job of management by objectives and increasing employee engagement. Remember, employee engagement has been proven beyond any doubt that it improves profitability. Understanding employee engagement and the drivers is the first step.