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Defining and communicating goals is one thing, it is quite another to implement total and strategic talent and goal alignment throughout an entire organization. We’re talking about more than a mission statement here, and these are the 7 best practices to help get you there.
Everyone is Involved
While almost all business initiatives, including total goal alignment, are top-down, it takes the embrace of the entire organization to make any initiative successful. So while the decision to become transparent with organizational goals starts at the executive level, employees, HR and managers alike must be a part of making the change. Executive educator Michael Goldsmith said:
“Successful leaders and managers today are willing to exercise their leadership in such a way that their people are empowered to make decisions, share information, and try new things. Most employees (future leaders) see the value in finding empowerment and are willing to take on the responsibilities that come with it.”
Look Forward and Back
Business trends, competitive analysis and talent forecasting will require you to lift your head up and look around. Stop playing catch-up or guessing games with your goals and look to solid information that will help you set and maintain them. Global social media strategist, Allen Gungormez said:
“Being able to see your competitors presence on their various social media properties, blogs, company websites, online advertising, email campaigns, third party mentions, and press mentions provide you with a truly holistic view of your competitors total marketing presence. Whatever the case, taking the time to see what your competitors are doing can help you market your brand better.”
Every Part of Talent Attraction
You’ve got your goals and your vision, now you need the talent to back it up and make it happen. Each part of talent attraction should include organizational and goal transparency; from job descriptions, social postings, the interview process, the onboarding process and every step in between. According to a survey of 4,288 HR and non-HR managers by the Boston Consulting Group, talent acquisition is the single most important driver for revenue growth and profit.
Consistency in Transparent Alignment
Both big picture objectives, and individual goals need to be visited daily, and the context or connection between the two should be perfectly clear. When goals aren’t regularly visited, alignment can get off track quite quickly. Hire, engage, and retain the best employees by showing them how their work helps drive the company’s strategy.
Recognize and Inspire
According to employee engagement experts Herd Wisdom, 99.4% of employees expect to be recognized when they do good work. Organizational transparency makes it easier for managers to identify failures as well as successes. Managers have to reward successes in a timely manner to ensure that the work behavior continues. Managers should also motivate and engage their team by making their great work visible throughout the company.
Hands Off, Micromanagers
The small business pros and NFIB.com revealed that of those who have been micromanaged, 71% say it interfered with their job performance, and 85% say morale has suffered as a consequence. Stop micromanaging, because there’s no need to. Well, there are a lot more reasons than that, but it’s a good one. Stick with the system of continuous communication of goals, tracking of alignment and performance and then give feedback and rewards. The system will identify everything you need to work on, when you need to work on it.
Get the Right Tools
All of the above can be impossible to implement successfully without the right platform. There are too many moving parts, even in small businesses for any one person to stay on top of it all. As organizations grow, it becomes hard and more vital to keep goal alignment at the forefront.
The fluid world of talent management mixed with the constant tracking of performance and goals does require a decent amount of supervision and best practice knowledge. Virtually nothing in business is concrete, so tracking and hitting goals can very often feel like aiming for a moving target.
Want to find the right tools to help you put these best practices to practice? We can help you with just that. Take a demo today and let’s get started.
Photo Credit: Sergey Nivens via bigstock
