Performance objectives and examples | Sage Advice UK

Even if your company is small and relatively new, there’s always value in reinforcing a culture of accountability across your workforce.

Performance objectives provide a foundation for ensuring that each individual is aligned with company goals and doing their best to achieve them.

This article looks at the kinds of goals that drive productivity and growth, and lists practical insights for setting effective goals.

Here’s what we cover:

What are performance goals?

Performance goals are strategic targets that guide your employees towards fulfilling the requirements of each role and contributing to the company’s overall success.

These objectives are tailored to each employee. They form a roadmap that outlines what they are supposed to achieve and the timeframe over which they should do it.

It’s important that performance objectives are defined collaboratively with the employees themselves. By involving them in the process, you can co-create realistic and impactful goals while also making each person feel invested in the mission.

By setting clear performance goals you foster a culture of accountability and excellence, where every team member understands their role in the bigger picture.

Two popular frameworks for setting goals are:

• OKRs, which breaks goals into objectives and key results, and
• SMART, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals.

Both are designed on the core principle of setting goals that align with your business plan and drive tangible progress towards your organisation’s strategic vision.

13 key performance objectives and goals, with examples

Performance objectives are not a one-size-fits-all concept; they vary depending on each person’s role and your company’s priorities. However, there are some common themes that can be adapted to your circumstances.

Here are 13 classic categories, including examples of work objectives.

1. Efficiency and productivity

These goals focus on optimising workflows and increasing output by reorganising processes and making better use of resources.

Example: a goal of this kind might be to reduce the time taken to complete a specific task by 10% within the next quarter.

2. Professional development goals

These days, it’s almost expected that you will provide your staff with opportunities for continuous learning. Goals in this vein encourage employees to upskill and further their careers.

Example: obtaining a relevant industry certification or attending a specific training course.

3. Collaboration and teamwork goals

It’s almost impossible to foster a positive work environment and pursue shared objectives without effective teamwork and communication.

There are tools and procedures that help us in this area, but they still require a conscious effort to be put to use.

Example: actively participating in cross-functional team meetings, or to contribute to at least two collaborative projects per quarter.

4. Customer satisfaction and service goals

In today’s enterprise culture, customer experience and loyalty metrics are all the rage. There are well-known key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can use as the basis for monitoring improvement.

Example: aiming for a customer satisfaction score of 90% or higher in your customer feedback surveys.

5. Self-management goals

These goals focus on the employee’s ability to take ownership of their work, manage their time effectively, and adapt to changes.

Modern performance management software includes apps to help individuals prioritise and organise tasks more efficiently, with dashboards that make it easy to check progress.

Example: learning how to use a task management tool to prioritise and track progress, ensuring that all tasks are completed on time.

6. Soft skills goals

Adding to the point about communication, most management teams understand the importance of empathy, body language and other interpersonal skills for effective teamwork.

Example: attending suitable courses, or becoming better rated by peers in 360-degree feedback reviews.

7. People management goals

Productive management is reflected in your ability to motivate and lead others.

However, this goal doesn’t necessarily apply to management staff alone. Peers in any team can play a role in spurring on their colleagues.

Example: attaining appropriate team satisfaction scores, or completing a number of collaborative initiatives undertaken in a certain period.

8. Problem-solving goals

All projects and ventures encounter hiccups and unforeseen eventualities sooner or later. This is where your employees’ analytical and creative thinking skills prove their worth.

Assess these skills by looking at their ability to identify the root cause of problems, develop and implement effective solutions, and learn from past experiences.

Example: completing scenario-based exercises to test these abilities, or reporting at least one real-world success in resolving a recurring issue, identifying causes, or improving processes.

9. Creativity and innovation goals

Creative thinking isn’t just for dealing with problems after the fact. Many businesses depend on innovation to get ahead of competitors, and the workforce is fertile ground for the new ideas they need.

Encourage your employees to consider how many existing processes they can improve.

Example: aiming to generate and present at least two new ideas for improving internal processes or product features within the next quarter.

10. Decision-making goals

Your company won’t make progress if people aren’t taking action at the right time, particularly in high-pressure or urgent situations.

The ability to make assertive decisions rests on skills in gathering and analysing relevant information, and being open to considering alternative options.

Example: aiming to deliver action plans for at least two pain points.

11. Risk management goals

Your employees need to be proactive in identifying and mitigating risks to the business, such as changing market conditions.

Example: documenting potential risks and proposing mitigation strategies.

12. Compliance goals

Your business can suffer serious setbacks if it fails to adhere to norms and regulations. Assess employees on their awareness of relevant regulations and their adherence to internal policies.

Example: completing a minimum number of compliance training sessions.

13. Health and safety goals

This starts with the prevention of workplace accidents and injuries, but extends to mental health and wellbeing.

You may be familiar with the classic “x days with no accidents” scoreboard, but you can also measure this goal in terms of compliance with regulations.

Example: reporting a minimum number of health and safety training modules attended, or participation in regular safety drills and inspections.

The top 5 performance objectives?

In today’s job market a common requirement is multi-tasking, and it’s clear that in almost any job you have multiple aspects where performance can be measured. The list almost certainly goes beyond 13.

However, not all of them are universal.

In our opinion, the five performance objectives that all companies should consider are:

• Efficiency and productivity goals—to optimise workflows and increase output.
• Customer satisfaction and service goals—a key driver of business success and customer retention.
• Problem-solving goals—for tackling unforeseen challenges and ensuring business continuity.
• Self-management goals—helping employees manage their time effectively and easily adapt to change.
• Health and safety goals—it goes without saying, an incapacitated workforce is an unproductive workforce.

How to set effective performance objectives

Setting effective performance objectives involves a collaborative approach and a focus on growth. You could treat this as a step-by-step procedure:

1. First, consult with your employees to ensure they understand and are invested in their goals. This collaboration emphasises how their work contributes to the company’s overall mission.
2. Align objectives with your company’s mission to ensure everyone is working towards the same strategic aims. Consider building cascading goals, which means structuring goals so that leadership-level plans trickle down and shape the objectives of all employees. 
3. Make sure your objectives are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
4. Provide opportunities for employees to develop their skills and advance their careers.

Methodologies for setting performance objectives

We alluded earlier to the need for specific frameworks for setting performance goals.

Here, we briefly look at the nature of four popular goal-setting methodologies and why each one has its place.

1. OKR (Objectives and Key Results)

This goal-setting framework focuses on defining what you want to achieve by setting ambitious objectives and measuring progress through measurable milestones (the “Key Results”) that track progress toward the objective.

OKRs are typically set quarterly, encouraging alignment between teams, individuals and the overall organisation. This approach emphasises transparency, accountability, and adaptability, enabling continuous performance tracking and adjustments.

The OKR framework is ideal for dynamic environments where flexibility and adaptability are crucial for success.

2. SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound)

This methodology ensures that objectives are well-defined (Specific), quantifiable (Measurable), realistic (Achievable—you could swap that for Actionable), aligned with broader goals (Relevant), and subject to clear deadlines (Time-bound).

The structured approach of SMART goals takes the legwork out of goal-setting, which enhances clarity, focus and motivation. This improves the chances of achieving desired outcomes.

SMART goals are effective when clarity and structure are essential for tracking progress. This methodology is best suited for individual performance goals or projects that need clear direction and precise execution within a set timeframe.

3. HARD Goals (Heartfelt, Animated, Required, and Difficult)

Here the focus is on setting performance objectives that inspire passion and commitment.

The “Heartfelt” component emphasises personal connection, motivating individuals to pursue goals they truly care about.

“Animated” refers to creating vivid, compelling visions of success that encourage enthusiasm.

“Required” means the goal is essential for personal or organisational growth.

Lastly, “Difficult” stresses the importance of setting challenging goals that push individuals beyond their comfort zones, fostering growth and innovation.

HARD goals are intended to spark emotional investment and encourage high-level performance.

Save this method for situations where motivation, personal commitment, and high ambition are key drivers of success.

4. BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)

As the name implies, BHAG is a bold goal-setting methodology that pushes organisations or individuals to aim for extraordinary achievements.

BHAGs are visionary and long term, often seeming unattainable at first. They require deep commitment and substantial effort to accomplish.

The idea is to inspire and galvanise a team toward a massive challenge that stands out as a defining objective, such as landing a significant market share or pioneering a major innovation.

BHAGs are typically set with a 10 to 30-year horizon, suited to organisations or leaders aiming for transformative change or intent on redefining an entire industry over the long term.

Final thoughts on how to align performance objectives with company goals

While we’ve positioned performance objectives as a matter for individual employees and their personal development, we have to stress that this is rooted in the company’s mission. This is a fundamental aspect and merits a closer look.

To properly align performance with company goals, regularly review and revise objectives checking for relevance and achievability. Encourage employee input in the goal-setting process and provide regular feedback and support.

By linking employee goals to business priorities, you create a fair and transparent performance management system that motivates employees and shows them how their work matters.