How goal-setting can motivate employees returning to work after COVID-19
With a COVID vaccine in the works, businesses are starting to hash out reopening plans and how they’ll get employees back on track.
The past year has done a number on workplace morale. Industry surveys show that employees are feeling stressed, burned out, and disconnected from their peers. Many had it worse, having been furloughed or laid off.
With a vaccine expected in early 2021, businesses are beginning to hash out their reopening plans and how they’ll get employees back on track. Goal-setting can play a role in regaining some semblance of normalcy. Here’s how organizations can use goals to re-energize employees.
Related: How to motivate employees with autonomy, growth & purpose
1. Survey teams to gauge morale.
It’s been a tough year, and employees have a lot on their minds. Some might be returning after months of unemployment and be grappling with anxiety and other mental health challenges. Worse yet, some employees may have been personally affected by the pandemic. Get a sense of where employees’ heads are at before jumping straight into goal-setting.
Those feelings, coupled with the fact that returning to work can be an emotionally-charged experience, means you may need to tweak the scope of certain goals depending on the individual. That might mean softening SMART criteria and focusing on high-level items process improvements rather than hard individual targets. Through manager one-on-one conversations and employee surveying, see what employees are ready to take on.
2. Fast-track recognition by setting short-term goals.
If the past year has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. Instead of setting targets six or twelve months out, focus on the short term — even if that means setting goals every month or quarter.
Setting quarterly or monthly targets doesn’t just make goals more tangible, it fast-tracks opportunities for recognition. Think of it this way: The quicker your employees have the chance to crush a goal, the sooner you can broadcast those wins to the rest of the company. After a turbulent year, small gestures like those go a long way in righting morale.
Later on, you’ll be able to broaden your scope and set long-term goals again. But when it comes time to do so, you’ll at least have a post-COVID baseline. Short-term outcomes will help you understand what your business’s “new normal” actually is.
3. Give employees one stretch goal at a time.
Stretch goals are powerful motivators under normal circumstances. But like athletes raring to go after an injury, employees can’t suddenly juggle five or six ambitious targets. Rather than encourage employees to take on multiple stretch goals at once, take a piecemeal approach. That means setting “mini” stretch goals, one at a time, that span just a month or even a week. As employees start getting into the swing of things, you can pick up the pace.
While it’s easy to assume returning employees will agree with the phased approach, some may want to bite off more than they can chew. Those top performers might be motivated by factors other than ambition, like concerns about job security. Managers have to play an active role in tempering those expectations so employees don’t burn out or set themselves up for disappointment. Keep goals realistic and achievable.
4. Use shared goals to spur collaboration.
If it was best practice to involve employees in goal-setting before the crisis, it’s especially important now. When your people take ownership of both the process and outcome, they become emotionally invested in their goals. After getting a read on how their reports feel, managers should spend time during one-on-ones to talk through priorities and arrive at targets they can get behind.
In addition to making goal-setting collaborative, extend the same spirit to accountability and ownership. Despite HR’s best efforts, employees may not feel unified right now. When multiple departments share goals, it can revitalize relationships that suffered during COVID-19 closures or the transition to remote work. Beyond just promoting better business outcomes, shared accountability might provide a boost to morale, too.
When many of us feel professionally “stuck,” setting thoughtful, short-term goals can give us something tangible to work toward. More than the targets themselves, it’s the habit of goal-setting that matters most. Goals offer clarity and help us find meaning in the day-to-day. They align teams to a shared vision and purpose.
But most importantly, goals give employees a reason to celebrate and recognize each others’ success. After the year we’ve had, that’s just what your people need.
Jack Altman is the co-founder and chief executive officer at Lattice. Prior to launching Lattice, Jack was the VP of Business and Corporate Development at Teespring, an e-commerce platform. Jack was also an early stage venture capital investor in companies like Opendoor, Flexport, and PlanGrid. Jack earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Princeton.
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