How should performance goals be communicated to employees?

Employee goals must be tied to the organization’s goals, HR leaders say. Forward-thinking employers are strongly committed to communicating their organization’s strategic direction to employees. Some of the ways that organizations communicate to their employees about their strategic plans and the roles their employees play in the organization’s wider success include:

• Communication to managers

• Town hall meetings

• New employee orientation

• Company newsletters

• Postings

Cascading goals. Once an employer’s strategic direction is known and understood, it can be used to sequentially drive lower-level goals within an organization. This approach is frequently referred to as cascading goals.

A performance management system with a cascading goal-setting component can be a powerful mechanism for ensuring that the mission, vision and strategy of an organization are realized. It ensures that work efforts are focused on those tasks and projects that are ultimately going to make the organization successful.

A cascading goal approach typically follows this process:

• Senior executives formulate high-level goals through the strategic planning process.

• The next level of management prepares department goals, making sure they are aligned with the organization’s strategic goals.

• This process cascades down through the organization, ending with the creation of performance expectations for individual employees.