Goals, by themselves, don’t automatically create motivation or commitment. It isn’t as simple as giving an employee an objective, encouraging them to do their best, and sending them on their way. Some goals naturally encourage employees to buy into them, while others feel more like compliance requirements than anything else.
Employees typically resist goals for reasons tied to basic psychological needs. If they feel like they have no input in the goals they’re meant to pursue or like a goal has no purpose, they’re not likely to feel particularly motivated by them. Unrealistic expectations and goals that don’t match broader priorities can cause this lack of motivation as well.
Behavioral science can help managers, HR, and leadership build goals that fulfill basic psychological needs and keep employees motivated to pursue them. Here's how.
Key Takeaways
- Employees are more likely to commit to goals when they understand the purpose and have some ownership.
- Clear, achievable, and meaningful goals support stronger employee motivation.
- Goal alignment, manager support, and regular feedback help sustain progress.
- Behavioral science can help organizations design a more effective goal-setting process.
Why employees don’t buy into workplace goals
Employees won’t always buy into the goals you set with them. Sometimes, that’s due to performance or commitment issues. But, in most cases, that resistance can be traced to genuine challenges you can actually work together to resolve. Challenges like:
- Goals assigned without employee input: Employees typically feel more motivated when pursuing goals they are co-creating with their managers. When they’re handed down from on high with little context for how they’re personally or organizationally relevant, goals aren’t nearly as effective.
- Unclear purpose: A strong goal should be tied to both broader company objectives and an employee’s personal priorities. When these links aren’t clear, employees are less likely to buy in.
- Unrealistic goals: Effective goals should encourage employees to stretch outside of their comfort zone. They shouldn’t be completely unattainable, whether that’s due to a mismatch in skill level or an unrealistic timeline.
- Lack of resources and support: Employees need to feel like their managers will coach them through making progress toward their goals. When that support is absent, they’ll be less motivated.
- Mismatch between goals and changing priorities: Your organization’s priorities change to respond to market shifts, and employee goals should change, too. If the gap between an old goal and a new priority gets too large, employees might start asking themselves why they’re even chasing that goal.
- Too many goals: If you give employees too many goals to work toward at the same time, their attention will be scattered. That makes it difficult to buy into any of them.
Goal compliance vs. goal commitment
Goal compliance means an employee works toward a goal because it’s required of them. Goal commitment means an employee is genuinely invested in a goal’s outcome. In many organizations, goal setting ends at compliance, with managers and leadership expecting employees to work toward goals just because they’re part of an employee’s responsibility.
But commitment beats compliance.
When employees truly commit to a goal, they’re more likely to complete it. That commitment typically means they helped craft that goal, which makes them more accountable for its outcome than a goal that was handed to them fully-formed. Making a goal a requirement for employees to comply with means employees will just do enough to meet that requirement. When they commit to a goal, they’re more accountable, more motivated to complete it, and more likely to problem-solve when they run into obstacles.
What behavioral science tells us about employee goal setting
Logically explaining the link between an employee’s goals, their day-to-day work, and your organization’s priorities can only go so far. To set goals that employees will be motivated to pursue, they need to meet the psychological needs that lead to stronger self-determination.
In their 2000 paper “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being,” researchers Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci listed three innate psychological needs that lead to better self-motivation and mental health:
- Competence, or the sense that you’re capable of accomplishing what’s expected of you.
- Relatedness, or feeling connected to the people asking you to accomplish something.
- Autonomy, or feeling like you have choice and agency.
These three psychological needs can be mapped to three essential elements of a motivating goal: autonomy, meaning, and achievability.
Achievable goals build confidence
Competence is an essential part of self-motivation and mental health, and employees feel most competent if they’re pursuing a goal they actually have a chance of achieving. A goal should challenge an employee to reach slightly beyond their grasp without feeling impossible. Getting that balance right can be challenging, which is why employees should be involved in setting their own goals.
Managers need to consider an employee’s capacity, skills, resources, and competing priorities when setting goals.
Meaning increases motivation
Relatedness increases motivation, and there’s a simple way to fulfill that need in goal setting: give them meaning. You can do this by connecting each goal to:
- Team priorities, so employees feel like they’re working shoulder-to-shoulder with their teammates.
- Organizational goals, so employee goals are aligned with broader priorities.
- Customer outcomes, so goals contribute to the organization’s bottom line.
- Professional development, so goals help move the employee’s own priorities forward.
Autonomy builds ownership
When employees have input into how their goals are set, completed, and tracked, they’re more likely to be motivated to pursue them. That’s because having that input maps naturally to a person’s need for autonomy. Employees feel more comfortable committing to a goal they’ve helped craft rather than one that’s just been handed down to them.
Employees should be involved in conversations about timelines, milestones, and measures of success. This not only helps them feel more autonomous, but it can make them feel more accountable for outcomes.
How goal-setting theory applies at work
In the 2002 paper “Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation: A 35-Year Odyssey,” Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham summarized 35 years of research on goal-setting to identify where goals and motivation intersect. From this research, we can pull three essential elements of an effective goal-setting strategy.
Set clear and specific goals
A goal that can be summed up as “do your best” won’t lead to a positive outcome. Locke and Latham’s research shows that goals need to be specific to push employees to perform. That means using goal-setting methodologies such as SMART or OKRs, which make them measurable and specific.
Balance challenge with achievability
Effective goals need to be difficult. But you need to strike the right balance between difficult and achievable. Set a goal too far outside of someone’s reach and they won’t be motivated to work toward it. If it’s too easy, then there’s no need to put any effort toward it.
Provide regular feedback
Continuous feedback allows managers to regularly share feedback as employees work toward their goals rather than in yearly or quarterly review sessions. This has multiple benefits. For one, it can reinforce the positive steps employees are taking toward their goals, encouraging them to keep moving. It can also help managers correct missteps before they lead to greater issues.
How to improve employee buy-in during goal setting
When employees buy into the goals you set for them, they’re more likely to commit to them rather than simply complying with what’s expected of them.
Involve employees early
Employees shouldn’t just be signing off on the goals you set for them. They should have input in choosing what their goals are going to focus on and what important milestones should be. They should be consulted on the kind of support they’ll need and the skills they’ll have to build.
Not every aspect of a goal can be changed, and employees should know where goals are flexible and where they aren’t.
Connect goals to bigger priorities
Goals need to be related to team and organizational priorities to fulfill a person’s basic need to feel connected to other people. Draw that relationship by explicitly naming specific team or organizational priorities an employee’s goals support. That goal alignment is essential.
Make progress visible
Goal tracking allows managers and employees to stay aligned on progress toward goals, so there are no surprises during performance reviews or 1-on-1 meetings. Employees are more likely to buy into goals when their progress is tracked somewhere their manager will see it.
Provide the resources employees need
Nothing is more frustrating for an employee than finding out they don’t have the time, tools, skills, information, or authority they need to achieve a goal. Managers need to identify what employees will need before they start working on a goal—as best they can—then have a plan for providing extra support as needed.
Recognize progress and learning
Recognizing the progress an employee has made and the effort they’ve put toward a goal makes them motivated to strive toward it. That recognition can be done in private, in 1-on-1 conversations and similar meetings, or publicly through chat apps and team meetings.
The manager’s role in employee goal setting
Managers have a key role to play in shaping the way employees understand, accept, and pursue goals. While HR and leadership put forward the guidelines that help prioritize commitment to a goal over mere compliance, managers are the ones who can actually put them into practice. Manager enablement allows HR and leaders to align with managers and give them the support in coaching their teams.
Coach instead of only monitoring
Managers shouldn’t just be tracking the progress employees make toward goals. Regular check-ins should go beyond monitoring, creating opportunities to support and coach employees as they work toward goals. That includes identifying and removing blockers, providing learning opportunities where needed, and solving problems.
Adjust goals when priorities change
Since the strongest goals are tied to broader priorities, they need the flexibility to adapt as these priorities change. Managers are the in-between for their teams and the rest of the organization, so they’re best-placed to help employees adjust their goals over time. Regular check-ins allow managers to ensure goals still support organizational priorities and help restore alignment when needed.
Common employee goal-setting mistakes
When helping employees set better goals, watch out for the following mistakes.
Too many goals
Context switching is what happens when people have to switch between multiple priorities, making meaningful progress towards any of them more difficult. Working on three priorities simultaneously, for example, is enough to lose 40% of working time just switching between them.
Assigning goals without employee input
Too often, goals are passed from leaders to managers, trickling down to employees nearly fully-formed. Employees should have a hand in defining their own goals to fulfill their need for autonomy.
Creating unclear or unrealistic goals
Goals need to be clear and achievable in order to be motivating. Managers and employees need to align on expectations and ensure everyone understands what’s expected of them.
Failing to connect goals to priorities
Disconnected goals aren’t as motivating as those that tie day-to-day work to larger priorities. Make drawing that link as important as crafting specific, challenging goals.
Only discussing progress in performance reviews
If progress toward goals is only discussed in yearly or quarterly performance reviews, it’s all too easy for managers and employees to drift out of alignment. Have regular conversations about goals to prevent this from happening.
Keeping outdated goals
It’s easy to keep working toward a goal that’s become outdated because a lot of effort has already been put into it. But employees and managers alike should treat goals as malleable, reacting to shifting organizational priorities.
Using goals exclusively as performance metrics
Goals should help employees grow their skills and capacity. They shouldn’t just be used as checkboxes in a performance review.
How 15Five supports effective employee goal setting
15Five is dedicated performance management software that allows managers, leadership, HR, and employees to stay aligned in setting goals, tracking progress, and getting the necessary support to keep moving forward. Using a platform like 15Five for goal-setting leads to stronger employee buy-in, clearer priorities, and improved accountability. 15Five allows you to centralize:
- Goal alignment
- Progress tracking
- Manager check-ins
- Continuous feedback
- Performance conversations
- Manager enablement
With 15Five, you can set stronger goals, maintain alignment at every level of your organization, and support employees as they work toward their objectives.
FAQ: Employee goal setting
What is employee goal setting?
Employee goal setting is a practice through which managers and employees work together to set performance goals for the year or quarter. These goals should be clear, specific, and just challenging enough to motivate employees to push themselves.
Why do employees resist workplace goals?
Employees might resist workplace goals for multiple reasons:
- They have no input in setting their goals.
- Goals aren’t tied to broader company objectives.
- Goals are too unrealistic.
- Employees don’t have the support they need to achieve their goals.
- There’s a mismatch between goals and shifting priorities.
- Employees have too many goals.
How can managers improve employee buy-in?
Managers can improve employee buy-in by:
- Involving employees in goal-setting early.
- Connecting goals to bigger priorities.
- Making progress more visible.
- Providing employees with the resources they need.
- Recognizing progress and learning.
What makes an employee goal motivating?
Goals are motivating when they can fulfill three basic psychological needs:
- Competence, or the ability to accomplish what’s expected.
- Relatedness, or the feeling that you’re connected to the people you’re working with.
- Autonomy, or the feeling of having choice and agency.
How often should employee goals be reviewed?
Employee goals should be reviewed at least quarterly, though managers should also check in frequently through 1-on-1s.
Set more motivating goals
Employees inherently want goals that challenge them. They just need the right support to achieve these goals, a say in setting them, and the feeling that their day-to-day work contributes to something greater. Managers can help employees build goals they'll buy into by involving them in the process, keeping goals clear, and ensuring day-to-day work matches shifting organizational priorities.
Want to see how a platform like 15Five can help you do this? Book a demo.
