Are ALL of your employees working 100% of the time on things that move your strategy forward? In other words, are their workloads fully aligned with business objectives? If your answer is no, don’t worry. Your organization is not unusual. Yet there are few things HR can influence that can have such a profound impact on your organization’s performance. While using performance management technology is recommended to get meaningful ROI, the software can’t do all of the work for you. Consider ten steps that can save you time and expense as you work to drive better organizational alignment.
1. First, know the goals.
Get involved with executives and senior management as they set the coming year’s goals. Try to understand the business issues and challenges driving each goal—and once they’ve been determined, follow up with the people most responsible for each goal to gain further insight.
STRATEGY: Executing an effective goal alignment process is a critical part of a successful performance management initiative.
2. Get buy-in.
Work with your executive team to ensure everyone is on the same page, and make certain they support your efforts to align employees with the company’s goals. You will need their assistance in communicating the importance of the program, so that employees understand that the executive team stands behind it.
3. Cascade goals.
After goals are set at the top of the organization, they should work their way down in the organization. This won’t happen by chance or osmosis! Facilitate the process by planning a multi-tiered rollout with benchmark dates (i.e., Week 1 = Executive objectives, Week 2 = Department head objectives, etc.). Because the organization’s strategy is both high-level and strategic, you can’t expect someone in the mailroom to establish perfectly aligned goals if his or her department has not already matched its own goals to the corporate goals.
