Why performance goals stall and how to turn them into continuous progress

Ask any manager worth their salt and they’ll tell you that setting performance goals is essential for keeping your people motivated and their efforts properly focused. And yet, less than half of employees manage to achieve change goals set by their organization.

We know that clear goal setting can be a really effective addition to performance management tools, and that employees are more productive and engaged when they know what’s expected of them. So, where are businesses going wrong with their goals and what can they do to pull themselves out of this tailspin?

What’s the point of performance goals?

Performance goals set clear expectations for each role. A content writer might be measured on weekly output, for example, while a sales assistant could be responsible for signing up a set number of loyalty members. They also help track progress over time, reducing micromanagement and giving you timely signals to recognize strong results or step in with support when performance falls short.

This approach seems to be effective, as 72% of employees cited goal setting as a strong performance motivator according to McKinsey.

Your options for goal setting

There are two flavors of performance goals you’re likely to see in goal tracking software:

• SMART goals: SMART stands for Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. In other words, they should be understandable, quantifiable, manageable in a reasonable timeframe, and should directly support the aims of your business. If tasks are too big and complex, SMART goals allow you to break them down into more manageable subgoals.
  
  
• Objectives and Key Results (OKRs): Objectives define organization-wide goals, while key results describe the employee or team actions that move them forward. OKRs give work meaning by clearly linking daily effort to business outcomes success.

Of course, the effectiveness of these methods hinges on how well your organization implements and manages goals in the first place. But where does it all go wrong?

Where quarterly goal setting goes wrong

According to research from Gartner, only 45% of employees reported meeting change goals set by their organization. Gartner’s findings might not seem to make sense when compared to those from McKinsey, but they do. You see, McKinsey’s findings come with the caveat that people are most motivated when you support their goals with regular feedback, support, and rewards.

In other words, performance goals fall apart when you leave them to gather dust. If you only review goals every quarter or so, they won’t be top of mind for your employees.

Expecting them to be motivated by something they hardly remember just isn’t realistic. If you’re still wondering where quarterly goals go wrong, it’s partly because they’re quarterly to begin with. So, how can managers and HR address this?

How you can make performance goals stick

While it’s important to set the right goals, they also need to stick. So, here are four ways to support goal setting as part of a regular performance management process:

1. Quarterly performance goal setting with weekly updates

A quarterly goal setting cadence is fine as long as they’re tracked and updated regularly. As indicated by McKinsey’s findings, the best way to do this is through forms of regular feedback like a weekly employee check-in. Even if employees only look at their performance goals during check-ins and reviews, it keeps them up to date and top of mind without manager intervention.

2. Bring goal data into performance conversations

You can’t expect goals to impact performance if they never come up. That’s why you should always review goal progress before any performance conversation. They’re a useful starting point for driving productive discussions.

Let’s say that sales team member you tasked with loyalty scheme sign-ups has missed the mark. With their lack of goal progression as evidence, you turn the discussion to their approach. By role-playing the conversation, you discover they’re actually coming on too strong and discouraging sign-ups. At that point, you can recommend a less heavy-handed approach.

3. Encourage your people to set their own performance goals

Another reason people may feel unmotivated by performance goals is a lack of autonomy. While some mandatory goals are unavoidable, they don’t need to be the whole picture. Rather than assigning as many goals as possible, start with a small number and invite employees to suggest their own.

That’s because goals you help shape feel more motivating due to a sense of ownership and are easier to remember and build on week-to-week.

4. Recognize and reward great goal progression

While performance goals are often seen as motivating, they’re really only half of the equation. Goals give people something to work toward, but motivation drops if progress goes unrecognized.

If someone spends weeks hitting an ambitious stretch goal and hears nothing, they’re unlikely to feel excited about the next one. That’s why recognition matters. When employees make progress, celebrate it openly. Give achievements visibility across the organization and back them up with meaningful rewards that reinforce effort and results.

How Perform365 supports continuous performance goals

Perform365 is our performance management system and part of our broader Human Success Platform. It’s designed to support continuous feedback loops with goal tracking, regular feedback, and ongoing documentation. Here’s how it can help you deliver more consistent performance goal management going forward.

Employee check-ins for regular goal updates

Although employee check-ins are technically part of Engage365, they’re also accessible with just a Perform365 subscription.

There are two parts to a check-in update:

• Personalized questions addressing experiences, engagement, wellbeing, and blockers.
• Goal tracking for updates without micromanagement.

If you use the weekly cadence we recommend, you’ll get goal updates from your employees every week without chasing them. This means that goal progress is always real-time and that goals won’t be forgotten over time. It also means that you’ll have regular opportunities to recognize progress, ensuring that performance goals continue to feel like a motivator.

Support performance goals with continuous feedback loops

Managers can respond directly to an employee’s weekly question answers, making them the perfect avenue for continuous feedback loops. Since they’re bundled together, it’s easy to reference SMART goal and OKR tracking when offering guidance.

That way, employees aren’t just thinking about how to tick boxes. They’re thinking about how to make goal progression easier in the future. Combined with accessible e-learning, this primes your people to think about goals in terms of personal development.

Surface performance goals during reviews and 1:1s

Perform365 automates up to 90% of prep for performance conversations, making it easy to reference goal tracking during 1:1s and formal review meetings. Besides keeping goals relevant, this helps to eliminate feelings of managerial bias that can otherwise make your people less receptive to difficult discussions.

Mix and match performance goal types

In Perform365, you have access to two main types of goal setting, SMART goals and OKRs. It’s important to choose the right method for your organization or a specific project, but that doesn’t mean it has to be one or the other.

Our goal tracking software lets you mix and match them to find the best approach. That might mean making large employee tasks SMART goals for manageability while connecting them to org-level key results.

Goals embedded into Microsoft 365

Another way we support continuous performance goals is by removing the friction around them. You can access all Perform365’s features inside Microsoft Teams, so you don’t have to waste time navigating between apps. Besides removing update friction, this makes it easier to reference them during the Teams-based conversations you have every day.

Increase awareness without increasing workload

With an effective system and the right approach, continuous performance goals don’t need to add to your workload. Frictionless updates mean you can increase awareness without disrupting employee responsibilities.

The trick is to build that regular cadence and always incorporate goals into performance conversations. If you aren’t confident in your ability to do this, check out our guide to OKR best practices.