Achieving Goals_ Define and Surpass Your High Performance Goals - Kathleen Schienle [17]
Once an action plan is complete, employees should note the steps on their calendars or agendas so that the tasks become part of their daily focus. Remind them to allow time for unforeseen problems, delays, and revisions. Also make it clear that you expect them to shelve or reassign any activities that conflict with their goals or that don’t contribute to the result they’re trying to achieve.
Don’t let employees get into the habit of saying they’ll begin a project next week or next month. Urge each member to take some positive action toward a goal today and encourage them to check items off their to-do lists as soon as they complete them. This will not only record their progress, it will also give them a sense of accomplishment. Keep them focused on the benefits they’ll receive—enhanced skills, job satisfaction, a sense of ownership—when they reach their goals.
Changing circumstances, such as a shift in job responsibilities or a new corporate mandate, might require you and your staff to modify the action plans you’ve drafted—or even the goal itself. Make any modifications using the same process you followed when you set the original goals and created their corresponding action plans.
MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES TO ACHIEVE
It takes vision, skill, and dedication to create a workplace where employees feel important and supported, and where they’re committed to their work and to each other’s growth and development. A team that’s productive, innovative, and goal-oriented must be energized and fully engaged. If you don’t intervene when your talented employees’ jobs have become routine, you run the risk of losing them, either physically or psychologically. You must stay on the lookout for opportunities to challenge each one of your employees.
THE BOTTOM LINE
NOT AN EMPLOYERS’ MARKET FOREVER
In 2004, executive recruiting firm ExecuNet reported that 68 percent of the 278 employed executives they surveyed were unhappy with their jobs. Clearly, companies need to do better at keeping employees motivated and satisfied with their jobs. One way to accomplish this is by putting in place an effective performance management program that rewards employees for achieving goals. This is a significant workplace improvement that can be established without major expense or effort—and that can save you money on recruiting and hiring.
SOURCE: “Employees Don’t Respond to Most Performance Plans” by Scott Cohen, Wall Street Journal (October 11, 2004).
“The desire to be challenged is a powerful human motivation. If you’re smart, you’ll use it to get the most out of your employees—no matter how well established your company is.”
—Charlie Trotter,
award-winning chef and culinary innovator
Workplace boredom is a major cause of employee turnover, which is expensive on several levels—it affects productivity, revenues, stock value, morale, public perception, and vulnerability to takeover. Unfortunately, it’s often the smart and creative workers, the most valued employees, who become bored or restless the soonest. Because they are highly self-motivated, they tend to suffer in a company where innovation and action are discouraged. High achievers—and possibly perfectionists—in most aspects of their lives, they need stimulating goals, new challenges, opportunities for growth, and a stake in the organizational strategy. If good workers think their jobs don’t provide these any longer, they may decide they’ve outgrown the company and start looking elsewhere.
On the flip side are those employees who are discontent because of a lack of job direction. Despite their potential, they do not stand out in the company. While they stay with the organization