In today’s business environment for organizations to be extremely successful, it is particularly critical for management to ensure that the organization completely aligns with the organization’s objectives through to its employees. When organizations effectively align objectives to employees it could be found that the organisation is able to reduce waste, increase efficiency, improve employee motivation and further increase overall performance and productivity within the organization.

Correspondingly, it becomes extremely critical for management to effectively ensure that they consistently engage in assuring that the employees within an organization are to be aligned. Provided within this blog are five best practice and effective steps on how to align employees to organizational objectives.

Recruit the Right Employees

The first critical step to assuring that employees are to be aligned to organization objectives is recruiting the right employees within the organization. For any organization to have effective objectives in place that are being met by employees it is critical to find and hire employees who will work towards meeting the organizational objectives.

When employees display traits, values and preferences that are aligned to that of the organization they will feel a higher level of motivation and satisfaction. This is critical to assuring that the organization objectives put into place are going to be met by the employees as they are putting in high levels of effort to meet objectives that resonate to them.

Use SMART Goals

To align employees to organizational objectives it is extremely important for management to utilise SMART goals. When creating objectives management will have considered their overall vision, mission and values and in turn need goals to help meet all aspects of the objective created, in turn, SMART goals are utilised.

Simply, SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Each of the points of a SMART goal assures that an objective is going to be effectively met through a strategic assurance when designing the SMART goal. If one part of the SMART goal does not work than the SMART goal is to be changed. Employees that are presented with a goal designed through the SMART goal system will assure that they will meet organizational objectives.

Cascade Goals

Cascading goals are an extremely effective strategy to be utilised by managers to align employees to organization objectives. When organizations cascade goals, they work to align goals that aim to meet organizational objectives through departments, teams and finally to individual employees which in turn assures that there is organizational support to company priorities.

Utilising a cascading strategy is critical in any organization that wishes to fully align employees to organizational objectives. To effectively cascade goals within an organization, at each different level ensure that SMART goals are being created specifically linking to the overall organization objective cascaded down to meeting each individual objective at hand.

Ensure Continuous Conversations

Managers will ensure that they are utilising continuous conversations to assure they are aligning employees to organizational objectives. Continuous conversations involve managers having a consistent and extremely frequent check-in with their organizational employees to discuss updates on objectives, provide feedback and recognise achievement.

When managers frequently see the progress of employees and further assist in assuring guidance in helping employees stay on track in meeting objectives and goals, employees feel an increased level of commitment and trust to objective success. Moreover, it can be seen that through continuous conversations employees will become increasingly willing to learn, plan and develop their current behaviours to undertake strategies to meet objectives more effectively with increased alignment.

Reward and Recognise

The final step to assuring that employees are aligned to organizational objectives is to reward and recogniseemployees. When managers reward and recognise employees for their achievements especially when they meet objectives that are important for the organization, employees feel valued and motivated to work harder.

Moreover, to effectively reward and recognise employees to keep organizational alignment make sure to outline the reasons for the employee receiving the reward or recognition clearly. Further, when recognising the employee write about what they had done that stood out amongst others and encourage them to continue working hard.

The Definitive Guide to Employee Engagement