Performance

9 Min Read

Using 15Five’s Performance Management Software Employee Goal Setting

Genevieve Michaels

Content Writer

Most employees aren’t satisfied with working the exact same job, day in and day out, without any path for growth or improvement. And, few organizations are satisfied with employees who don’t show regular improvements in their performance. Setting goals helps both sides win. It keeps employees engaged while building a stronger workforce that drives innovation and promotes from within.

That said, goal-setting isn’t a one-and-done process. You can’t just give someone a vague target and hope for the best. Effective employee goals typically trickle down from broader strategic goals, ensuring everyone works toward the same outcome. They set clear expectations using measurable metrics that make tracking progress objective and automatic. Most importantly, they align employees, managers, and leadership so everyone pulls in the same direction.

While you could write goals in a spreadsheet or document, that makes them harder to track, update, modify, and share. That’s where performance management software like 15Five becomes so important. This type of software centralizes goals, performance metrics, and more in a single platform. That makes it easier for managers and employees alike to plan and track goals, as well as improve their goal-setting process over time.

And, of course, the role of AI in goal-setting can’t be overstated. Not only does it bring similar benefits AI tools can achieve in other processes, but AI-driven goal-setting software can completely transform the way your teams set goals.

Key takeaways:

Setting meaningful goals requires clear expectations, measurable outcomes, and connecting employee growth with company objectives.
AI-powered performance management platforms enhance, streamline, and automate the goal-tracking process.
15Five’s all-in-one performance management platform ensures goals lead to growth, improve employee engagement, and keep everyone aligned.

The fundamentals of employee goal setting

Goal-setting, at its simplest, allows managers and employees to work together to establish meaningful goals. These goals can serve multiple purposes, like furthering important company objectives or guiding employees in improving their weaknesses. Generally, these goals come in one of two forms.

Performance goals are tied to an employee’s job responsibilities. They’re aimed at making employees stronger contributors in ways that connect with the organization’s overall goals. A salesperson might have a performance goal to increase their close rates. A software developer might focus on reducing defects in published code.

Development goals are more personal, focusing on career growth. These goals combine personal development objectives with the upskilling necessary for employees to advance in their careers. A salesperson might have a development goal about improving their strategic thinking. A software developer might have a development goal involving learning project management skills.

A healthy mix of both types of goals is important to keep employees growing in ways that matter most to them while helping them contribute more to overall organizational goals. When done right, goal-setting benefits everyone. On the employee side, that means:

Clear expectations: With the right goals, employees know exactly what to do to keep moving forward.
Improved motivation: Goals and clear expectations allow employees to work towards a broader objective, even routine tasks.
Increased focus: It’s easy for employees to get distracted with tons of projects and responsibilities, especially in office work. Clear goals help employees prioritize and say no to work that doesn’t support their objectives.
Clearer growth: When managers set clear goals with employees, career paths become visible.
More meaningful feedback: Goals give managers and employees a reference point for productive conversations.
Better alignment: Managers, employees, and leadership are more aligned when everyone knows the goals employees are working towards.

Employee goal-setting comes with massive benefits for the organization, as well:

More revenue: Employees who actively work toward company goals are more productive and contribute more to profitability.
Better morale: Clear targets and visible progress boost overall morale.
Increased employee retention: With opportunities for advancement being such an important contributor to employee retention, goal-setting is invaluable.
Increased employee engagement: Employee engagement depends on people believing in your mission and the value of their day-to-day work. That can’t happen without clear objectives.

Setting clear goals drives employee growth and organizational success—but only when done properly. That’s why managers use proven methodologies that make the process consistent and effective like:

SMART goals: Standing for goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
OKRs: Standing for Objectives and Key Results, this methodology allows you to set broad goals that guide your overall work, with clear, measurable results that contribute to them.
WOOP goals: Standing for the building blocks of a clear goal, Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, and Plan.

The role of AI in employee goal-setting

AI tools have a massive impact on every aspect of your employees’ work, and goal-setting is no different. AI makes goal-setting more personalized and precise without creating mountains of extra work.

Enhanced precision and personalization

Once you turn your goal-setting process from an isolated, ad-hoc process into a system for improving growth throughout your organization, the work involved balloons. You now need to go through and analyze vast amounts of employee data, from past performance metrics to skill assessments and employee engagement surveys. That’s if you want to set goals that correctly match the overall growth objectives of your employees and their best potential contribution to the organization’s goals.

AI tools can analyze this data in a fraction of the time your HR team can, often in real-time. From there, it can assist managers in suggesting objectives that are both challenging and achievable and match an individual employee’s profile, based on information you already have.

These tools can also potentially pull from market trends, team dynamics, and organizational priorities to keep goals relevant over time. This gives you data-driven insights without the data analysis burden.

Tracking progress automatically

Tracking goal progress usually requires significant mental bandwidth and manual work. Employees have to remember to report progress on top of doing the actual work. Managers sort through dozens of reports and notifications to understand that progress. The more direct reports, the more this work multiplies.

AI-powered tools give managers real-time insights and progress monitoring, allowing them to track multiple goals for multiple employees at once effortlessly. From there, they can proactively step in when employees start to go off track or aren’t meeting growth targets. More advanced tools can even use predictive analytics, based on historical data, to gauge the success potential of certain objectives and recommend adjustments.

Integration with performance management platforms

Leading performance management platforms, like 15Five, have built-in AI features for optimizing and streamlining the way your employees set goals and managers track them. This allows HR teams to start reaping the benefits of AI without deploying dedicated tools beyond those that can handle multiple HR responsibilities, from performance management to employee engagement and performance reviews.

By integrating seamlessly with these platforms, AI can leverage the employee data you’re already collecting, essentially allowing you to rely on custom AI models that know the context of every objective. This gives innovative HR teams a massive advantage over those who use general AI models like ChatGPT.

Leveraging performance management software for goal tracking

Performance management software helps HR teams systematize and streamline processes that help employees reach their full potential while contributing to organizational goals. These platforms replace outdated tracking methods like infrequent reviews, spreadsheets, and meetings.

In goal-tracking, performance management software brings specific benefits beyond saving managers and HR teams precious time.

Goal tracking and progress monitoring

Managers load employee goals into the software and use real-time data and automated insights to measure progress. That information feeds into dashboards and reports, giving leadership and stakeholders a clear view of employee goals and their impact.

Continuous feedback and coaching

Many employees struggle with their goals due to a lack of timely feedback. Performance management software automates the feedback cycle, prompting managers to give feedback exactly when it’s needed, in a format that serves them and employees equally.

Data analytics and reporting

Performance management software puts advanced data analytics and automated reports at your fingertips. For managers, that means getting a better understanding of how employee goals contribute to the organization’s objectives. For HR teams, it gives them an overall view of performance throughout the organization, allowing them to guide managers and employees in setting better goals.

Integration with HR systems

Many performance management platforms integrate natively with other HR systems, meaning you don’t need to rely on superfluous integration solutions. This enhances your platform by enriching it with the massive amounts of data available in other systems.

Employee engagement and recognition

Performance management platforms play a key role in increasing employee engagement, and part of that involves facilitating goal-setting. Regular engagement surveys, automatically sent and analyzed by these platforms, give leadership clear insight into what matters to their workforce, leading to better, more relevant goals.

How 15Five supports AI-driven employee goal setting

Ready for a performance management platform that streamlines goal-setting alongside other essential HR tasks? 15Five is built for data-driven HR professionals who recognize technology’s role in aligning HR initiatives with business goals.

15Five is a performance management platform built for data-driven HR professionals who recognize the role of technology in aligning HR initiatives with business goals and driving alignment throughout their organization. When it comes to setting goals, 15Five allows you to:

Effortlessly set company and individual objectives
Follow goal and OKR progress in real-time
Engage teams with collaborative goals
Proactively identify and address challenges
Enhance goals and OKRs with data from feedback sessions and check-ins

And because 15Five has built-in AI, much of this work is automated for you.

Want to see what that looks like? Here are just a few examples of 15Five customers who use the platform for goal-setting, improving performance throughout their organization, and more:

Interested in seeing what 15Five can do for your team? Book a demo with us.

Better employee goal setting, better results

Goal-setting shows employees the path to becoming their best selves while ensuring their development aligns with organizational objectives. AI-powered performance management platforms give HR professionals and managers more tools to analyze performance data, guide employees better, and track progress over time.

Integrating goal-setting tools in your organization is as simple as finding the right platform, evaluating its potential within your teams, and slowly ramping up usage after a pilot project.

15Five is leading the charge in AI-powered goal-setting for a reason. Find out why here.