Question

how might a communications plan be used to support employee involvement in the setting of goals/objectives?

What approach/strategy for the setting of goals/objectives is used in your organization and why?

Answer 1

A communication plan is a defined process to be followed in order to provide stakeholders with all the relevant information. It involves the channel of communication to be adopted to deliver the same. It clearly states the way in which information should be disseminated across company.

The communication plan can be used to support employee involvement in goal setting in following ways:

• Communicating the strategic organizational goals for the company
• Linking the goals to the vision and mission of the firm
• Explaining the importance of goal setting and how it helps the individual to grow
• Explaining goal setting process with managers and SMART approach (Simple, Measureable, Agreed upon, Result oriented, Time bound)
• Asking employees to specify individual objectives and its correlation to overall company goal
• Rewards and recognition in case of goal attainment
• Method for tracking of goals and results

In my company, top down approach is used for goal setting. The goals for the next 5 years are set up the management along with priorities and expectations under different category like: Productivity, Employee development, Revenue/Profit target etc. Basis this, goals get split into various department to which it is relevant. Then, similar exercise is done by each department and goals percolate down to lower level.

The advantage of such approach is:

• There is consistency of objectives through out the organization
• There are less chance of conflict
• There is no scope of ambiguity and confusion
• The goals are aligned to bigger picture of organizational target