After completing strategic planning, you outline strategic objectives to gain a competitive advantage and move your company forward.
How do the different functions (Finance, Marketing, Operations, Human Resources, etc.) work together toward helping the organization achieve its strategic vision?
This is where strategic alignment comes in!
Aligning performance metrics with your organization’s strategic objectives is the process of arranging all aspects of the organization (departments, teams, and individuals) so that everyone knows what is expected of them in their roles to help the organization reach its objectives.
Aligning performance metrics with your strategic objectives gets everyone on the same page, leading to increased employee engagement, better performance, and business success.
So how do you align performance metrics with strategic objectives to move your organization forward? This article will answer this question with valuable insights on how to achieve that.
Tip 1: Establish clear connections between performance metrics and strategic objectives
Establishing clear connections between performance metrics and strategic objectives ensures that individual objectives move the needle toward achieving the organization’s overall objectives.
When organizational goals inspire team goals and team goals inspire individual goals, employees can see how their individual goals fit into the big picture.
They’ll have a clear sense of how they are supporting the organization’s lofty goals.
This boosts their perception of their value as employees and motivates them to put in more productive efforts.
However, when you fail to cascade strategic goals and objectives down to every level of the organization, employees will be left wondering what level of performance is expected of them.
They’ll interpret expectations themselves, resulting in poor performance outcomes (such as performances with zero or little impact on overall objectives).
For example, if your goal is to be the leading teeth retainer provider in the Southwestern United States by 2030, you may use this company goal to set departmental goals as follows:
Sales: increase sales by 80% before the start of the next year.
Marketing: increase customer base by 30% before the start of the next year.
Production: increase output by 50% while maintaining the unit cost of production and quality level.
Human resource: Grow sales team by 15% for regional coverage.
Managers can then use these department-level objectives to set performance expectations for individuals and teams.
For example, the marketing team can be tasked with acquiring 500 new customers before the end of this quarter.
With these, employees understand how their work links to the company’s vision of becoming the leading teeth retainer provider.
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Tip 2: Define measurable targets for each performance metric
A performance metric is effective in measuring the performance of an individual, team, or department only if it is “measurable.” Thus, defining measurable targets for each performance metric helps you determine whether or not your people are achieving their objectives.
For example, consider a company with growth objectives that wants its marketing department to increase its customer base.
A target like “Increase customer base” is ineffective, as it does not specify the desired increase and within what time frame it should be obtained.
A more effective measurable target will be “Acquire 1,000 new customers by the end of Q1.” With this, you can track progress as you move toward the deadline.
You should follow the SMART model when setting measurable targets for your performance metrics (ensuring that all targets are specific, measurable, accurate, relevant, and time-bound).
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Tip 3: Communicate the importance of performance metrics alignment to the team
Communicating the importance of performance metrics alignment to the team increases employee engagement. After using broad company objectives to set business objectives for departments and individuals, it’s important to communicate these to the employees.
This is because they can only meet the expectations they receive and understand.
That is, your executive team defines and communicates business goals to management teams, who then set measurable goals and communicate them to employees. This ensures that objectives are clear to everyone.
There should be no question about what the organization is trying to achieve and what each person should do to achieve them.
How well you communicate information is critical to team alignment and engagement.
With organizations consisting of different departments, it’s easy to fall into information silos. Ensure you share updates on strategic progress. Never leave your team in the dark.
Importantly, communication should be two-way. Create opportunities for employees to answer questions and contribute ideas.
When employees have input on goals, there’s a sense of ownership and buy-in increases.
So, instead of always dictating key performance indicators or strategic measures to them, allow them input in the goal-setting process.
Tip 4: Continuously monitor and review performance metrics for alignment
Continuously monitoring performance metrics for alignment is the only way to ensure everyone remains on track toward achieving these goals.
The business environment is dynamic. For this reason, successful businesses are those that can adapt to changing times to make adjustments when necessary to maintain or improve their competitive advantage.
By continuously monitoring performance metrics for alignment, you can determine whether employees and teams are still working towards the same goals.
Regular monitoring helps you stay on top of how your teams are performing against their goals and whether individual objectives still align with the organizational strategy.
This can help you identify problems before it’s too late. For example, you can easily identify when a team member is not delivering their goals and provide appropriate support to help them achieve their targets.
Tip 5: Leverage technology tools for efficient performance metric tracking
Goal alignment is easier said than done because it is a challenging process that involves defining goals and objectives, cascading objectives down the organization, breaking down objectives into measurable KPIs, tracking performance to ensure goal achievement, and revising goals when necessary.
Thankfully, there are different strategy management software solutions that make mapping performance with strategic requirements easy and efficient.
These solutions can help you streamline many aspects of the goal alignment and performance tracking processes.
For example, the ultimate strategy management software Kippy supports the auto-generation of KPIs, cascading of objectives down the organization, employee performance management, and more.
Selecting measurable KPIs for your objectives is one of the most delicate aspects of the goal alignment process.
Get it wrong, and you’ll end up using the wrong measures, leading you to an unrealistic picture of progress and preventing you from taking the needed steps to improve.
The strategy software Kippy uses AI to generate accurate and relevant KPIs for your objectives, helping you avoid the pain of selecting the wrong KPIs.
Kippy supports the iterative cascading of objectives to all levels of the organization so everyone from your senior leadership to front-line employees knows what is expected of them.
Instead of scampering for employee performance data in different departments, you’ll have everything in one place for easy employee appraisals.
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Takeaway: Facilitate goal achievement by using Kippy to align performance metrics with your strategy
Aligning performance metrics with strategies helps everyone in your company to work towards achieving common objectives. People see how their work impacts overall company goals and are motivated to put in better performances.
Strategy management tools help companies achieve business success by simplifying many aspects of goal alignment and performance metric tracking.
Kippy stands tallest among strategy management tools as it is the only software that automatically generates KPIs for measuring objectives.
It’ll furnish you with the best KPIs for your objectives in seconds, saving you the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars you’d have spent finding KPIs.
Want to help your employees achieve their goals and have your organization working like a well-oiled machine? Use Kipy for goal alignment and overall strategy management. Book a demo today and see how Kippy can help.