About the skill Employees should have a clear understanding of what they’re attempting to accomplish. Furthermore, as a supervisor, you must see that this task is achieved by helping your employees set work goals. This appears to be common sense, but it doesn’t always happen. Setting pay-for-performance objectives is a skill that every manager needs to perfect. You can better facilitate this process by following these guidelines:
Identify an employee’s key job tasks. Goal setting begins by defining what you want your employees to accomplish. The best source for this information is each employee’s job description. Establish specific and challenging goals for each key task. Identify the level of performance expected of each employee. Specify a target for employees to hit. Specify deadlines for each goal to reduce ambiguity, but do not set them arbitrarily. Make them realistic given the tasks to be completed.
3. Allow employees to actively participate. Employees who participate in goal setting are more likely to accept the goals. However, it must be sincere participation. That is, employees must perceive that you truly seek their input and are not just going through the motions.
4. Set priorities. When you give someone more than one goal, be sure to rank the goals in order of importance. Setting priorities encourages employees to take action and expend effort on each goal in proportion to its importance. Rate goals for difficulty and importance, not to encourage people to choose easy goals, but so that individuals can receive credit for trying difficult goals, even if they don’t fully achieve them.
5. Build in feedback mechanisms to assess goal progress. Feedback lets employees know whether their level of effort is sufficient to attain the goal. Feedback should be both self- and supervisor-generated. In either case, feedback should be frequent and recurring.
6. Link rewards to goal attainment. It’s natural for employees to ask, “What’s in it for me? Solve” Linking rewards to achieving goals will help answer that question.
