How to Make Employees Goal-Oriented at Work

Whether you want to grow page count, grow distribution, or increase advertising revenue, your business works to achieve certain objectives. If you can learn to make employees goal-oriented in their duties, you’ll increase your success rate exponentially.

To understand what your business is working toward and whether you’re progressing or succeeding in your daily efforts, you must set clearly defined goals. Goals give you a metric to work against. Unfortunately, goal setting is one of the most difficult aspects of managing a business. Only 5% of small businesses achieve all of their yearly goals. This could be due to setting unattainable goals, failing to track the right metrics or a lack of motivation among workers. That’s why it’s important to understand how to make employees more goal-oriented at work.

Keep reading to learn about goal setting in the workplace and how to make employees goal-oriented for continued growth and success. 

Key Takeaways

• Goal-oriented individuals are motivated by purpose and focused on completing tasks to achieve a specific outcome.
• A goal-oriented worker focuses on three things: organizing duties, completing tasks, and sustaining motivation.
• From setting SMART goals to holding workers accountable, there are seven ways to make employees more goal-oriented.

What Exactly Does it Mean to Be Goal-Oriented? 

To be goal-oriented, you must have a purpose. Knowing your purpose motivates you to take the necessary actions to achieve a particular outcome. Goal-oriented individuals are task-and-results-driven, using checkpoints or targets to measure success and stay on course.

Goal-oriented people are typically:

• Organized: They gather details, plan the necessary steps, and prioritize tasks to reach each goal.
• Optimistic: Their positive outlook helps build the confidence they need to problem solve and increase productivity.
• Self-aware: Knowing their strengths and weaknesses allows them to manage their approach to achieving their goal.
• Decision-makers: When obstacles arise, they can assess the situation and adjust their strategy to propel them toward their objective.
• Good at time management: They can set deadlines and take the necessary steps to finish tasks on time.
• Analytical: Continual assessment and critical thinking help them stay on track to effectively complete their mission.

Developing a goal-oriented mindset is important for your newspaper or magazine printing company because it gives you direction. It shapes your strategies and approach for every aspect of your business, from hiring new employees to developing unique ideas to grow small newspaper revenue. Building a goal-oriented team can help strengthen your business by getting everyone on the same page and working toward the same objective. As a result, you’ll increase productivity and see overall results sooner.

7 Tips to Make Employees Goal-Oriented 

A goal-oriented worker focuses on three main things: organizing duties, completing tasks, and sustaining motivation. Here are seven ways to make employees goal-oriented to help propel your business toward success.

1. Set SMART Goals

One of the most critical steps in goal-setting is to establish realistic objectives. Encourage your team to set SMART goals that are:

• Specific: They clearly state what you aim to accomplish.
• Measurable: You must be able to evaluate and demonstrate to what extent the team has met its goal.
• Achievable: When goals aren’t attainable, people lose motivation and drive.
• Relevant: Ensure your goals are in alignment with your mission.
• Timely: Deadlines help you stay on track to ensure overall success.

SMART goals can help increase productivity, assist with time management, and provide the motivation to keep moving toward greatness. 

The following video provides more information and helpful examples of effective SMART goals to improve your business.

2. Prioritize Tasks

Once you’ve set your goals, it’s helpful to create a working list of tasks. Prioritize the duties that your team needs to complete first. You can determine this by ease of completion, deadline, or whatever motivates employees to finish the tasks. Sometimes it’s helpful to complete less time-intensive, complex duties first. This helps build momentum and provides feelings of accomplishment that drive people to the next item on the to-do list.

3. Divide and Conquer

Larger tasks can seem overwhelming and lead to procrastination and postponement. Consider dividing cumbersome duties into smaller, more manageable responsibilities. Although this might feel like you’re adding more steps to the process, employees will feel more motivated to complete these objectives, and you’ll reach your goals more quickly and efficiently.

4. Develop a Routine

Sometimes a simple change in routine can mean the difference between increasing productivity and generating motivation. Encourage your team to create habits that become routines. From arriving to work at a certain time to checking days off the calendar, the self-discipline of adjusting or creating a routine can help workers manage their time more effectively and remain focused on accomplishing their goals. 

5. Track Progress

Constant evaluation ensures your team (and business) reaches its goals. Whether you assess progress at the end of each day or at a set time each week, tracking your progress will help you understand the efficacy of your short-term and long-term efforts. Continual assessment will reveal what aspects of your approach are working and what needs improvement. This enables you to course-correct as needed to reach your overall objectives.

6. Create a Culture of Accountability

Accountability is key to the success of achieving any goal. Assign team members accountability partners who will check in with them and ensure they stay on target to meet their objectives. Hold weekly staff meetings that allow employees an opportunity to provide progress reports on the work they’re doing. Publish individual updates where everyone can see the good work they’ve accomplished as the group works toward their mission. This can motivate, encourage, and support people in reaching their goals.

7. Provide Accessibility to Tools

There are numerous tools available to help employees to become more goal-oriented. Goal tracking apps can show people how far they’ve come in their mission and send motivating reminders directly to workers’ phones. Shared digital calendars can keep everyone on track to meet their deadlines. Vision boards help teams keep their eye on the result and motivate them to continue working toward a positive outcome. Offer these resources to your team to support their efforts and encourage success.

Achieve Your Goals

BOOM Communications delivers advertising and marketing solutions that help you reach your goals. 

Contact BOOM Communications today to learn how we can help motivate your team to be more goal-oriented at work.