Measuring Success

In this section, we'll be covering recommended Goal Methodologies that you can utilize and deploy to your company. Please review all the following sections carefully. Each of the chapters are broken down into separate articles, which are linked in the table of contents below.

If you would prefer to view this guide in its entirety and as a single .pdf, please download it by clicking the attachment below.

Now that you know how to successfully launch a goals program, the next question you probably have is: how do I measure the success of my goals initiative? How do I know what to focus on, and where I can drive improvements?

Below is a sample pre-built dashboard from Reflektive, showcasing some of the goals metrics that are most valuable to our customers. We’ve also included key data points you should monitor to track goal progress and identify problem areas early on.

Examine the average goal completion rate across your company, and use it as a benchmark. Then take a look at completion rate by department, location, or any other demographic. This will help you identify high-performing teams that can share best practices with you. Perhaps the engineering team discusses goals during their weekly meeting, which contributes to their high goal completion.

Conversely, you can identify teams, departments, and offices that have low goal completion and work with them to address this issue.

Another metric we recommend tracking is at-risk goals. Reflektive defines “at-risk” as less than 60% completed. For each department, we recommend comparing the number of at-risk goals to the number of total goals. For instance, perhaps the average percentage of at-risk goals across the company is 30%. For the Customer Success team, that percentage is 50%. This might indicate that the CS team is creating too many goals, or that the goals are not achievable.

Regardless, the HR team now knows to talk to CS leadership about the department’s goals and how to effectively set them.

To ensure that employees are setting goals appropriately, we recommend that HR leaders evaluate the average number of goals per employee. HR teams can look at the average across the entire company, and use that as a baseline. We recommend no more than 5 goals per employee. Then, you can look at the average goal per employee by department, location, or other demographic. You can then identify if there are teams or offices that are creating too many goals or too few goals.