A new year means new beginnings. The slate has been wiped clean from the prior year, and it’s time to start a fresh. For businesses, this is a great opportunity to reflect on the challenges and successes experienced over the past 12 months and use this knowledge to create actionable goals that can help the business to make improvements going forward.
However, is it enough to look at the New Year’s resolutions of the organisation as a whole? What about the resolutions and goals of each employee? After all, they may have their own professional goals they wish to fulfil, such as gaining a new skill or professional qualification, networking with colleagues or working towards a promotion.
Understanding your employee’s professional goals is essential for your business, as it will allow you, your managers and your HR team to integrate employees’ professional goals into their workplace objectives. Assisting your employees in achieving their professional new year’s resolutions will not only benefit them but your organisation too.
How Can You Incorporate Your Employee’s Goals Into Your Business?
Before you can even begin to integrate employees’ goals and find ways to help them achieve their ambitions in the workplace, you need to be aware of what their goals are. So you need to start by having meaningful conversations with your employees about what they hope to achieve during the work year.
From this conversation, you can begin to work through the resolutions your employees have in mind, determine which are relevant to the business, how they can be incorporated into current objectives or KPIs and the ways your organisation can help them.
Create Achievable Goals
Achieving a goal cannot be done overnight; small, consistent steps need to be taken in order to reach it. HR team members can sit down with employees, discuss their new year’s resolutions, and then help them to devise an action plan consisting of smaller, attainable objectives that will help them reach their overarching goal.
Assign deadlines
Deadlines give you a timeframe in which you can work towards your goal. This can create a sense of urgency for employees and their aims and ensure that they do the work to accomplish their resolutions.
Help assess progress
HR teams can check in with employees on a regular basis, such as once a month, to see how they’re getting on with their resolutions and goals. This will help employees see where they are currently in relation to achieving their goals. If they’re on track or exceeding expectations, that’s fantastic. If not, then the HR team can help them review their strategy.
What Can HR Teams Do To Help?
HR departments are typically responsible for recruiting, processing payroll, and conducting disciplinary proceedings. However, they also contribute to employees by providing career path guidance, offering educational or training opportunities and offering general support.
These skills can prove advantageous when incorporating employees’ new year’s resolutions into the business. Many employee goals, such as learning a new skill or working towards a promotion, will require training and guidance.
If you’re looking to set, track, manage and report on employee goals efficiently, get in touch with the Natural HR team today, or book a demo to see our employee performance management module in action.