It’s typical for companies to look at their goals’ progress on a quarterly basis. While this is convenient, it means three, six, or even nine months will have gone by before you even recognize there is a problem. So, 'now' is always the time to think about your goals.
There are various methods of tracking yearly goals. Many companies pay attention to KPIs or, Key Performance Indicators. There’s also OKR (Objectives and Key Results). The latter is gaining popularity in high-value companies. It helps to strive toward more ambitious, but still achievable goals. This method is helping to push managers and teams to reach their full potential.
To try this approach, you need to create three to five objectives that are more than what you’d expect to achieve with your goal. They must be definitive objectives, such as increasing new sales by 17%. Outline three key results for each objective to use as measurable milestones in your HR plan.
The milestones have to be measurable and have evidence to prove their completion. So, for example, the milestone cannot be “increase employee morale.” It could however be be “increase new employee retention by 5%.”
Measure success with percentages and hard data and make sure all team members have access to the progress. It can be posted on a whiteboard or in a shared doc. Your company succeeds and fails together. Any progress made on an objective is relevant to all team members.
There are various progress management software packages that can be used to help you keep track. Capterra has a great list with reviews and ratings of some top options.
It’s almost never too early to start assessing your goals. If you wait until it’s time for them to be finished you’ll have no way of making adjustments. A Staples National Small Business Survey found that more than 80% of the participating companies don’t keep track of their goals, and 77% of them didn’t achieve their stated goals. Lack of tracking can make a big impact.
Ideally, you would have set up a time to get together with various team members and go over goal tracking when the goals were set. If not, consider doing a monthly check in with each of the task masters assigned to a goal. Start a month after the beginning of your year, or whenever your goals officially started. You can make time adjustments moving forward as needed.
You cannot get caught underestimating how quickly business dynamics can change. If you don’t keep on top of HR goals, by the time you notice, it may be too late to fix it. This is why it’s helpful to create the smaller OKRs mentioned above. Having milestones on the path to the ultimate goals helps encourage you to keep abreast of the status.
You may not need to get everyone together to go over every goal and objective more than once a quarter, but don’t wait until that to do anything. You should check in with teams for individual objectives once a month. Track, document, and socialize all results.
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