Setting employee goals and objectives is a common practice among organizations worldwide. To get the most out of your employees, you must give them goals they can work towards. This not only keeps them motivated but also maintains high performance levels.
Here are the 5 Examples of Professional Goals For Work 2025.
Goal#1: Bring More Creativity To Work
As the corporate world continues to become more competitive, creativity keeps on gaining more significance among employers. Creativity can impact how well your employees can implement their tasks. Because it contributes to the development of the company, organizations are increasingly showing interest in cultivating employees’ creative thinking. And you don’t want to fall behind. So this year, creativity should top the list of your employees’ goals and objectives.
Though creativity is not something that can be taught, few proven practices can make your employees think out of the box. Interestingly, some of the practices are as simple as walking, learning a new instrument, and even just sitting at a place doing nothing at all.
Here is what employees need to do:
Go for a 30-minute walk, 3 times a week, after work. Don’t listen to music or be on call while walking. The primary focus would be the surroundings
Pick up a new hobby or learn to play a new instrument. Dedicate at least half an hour to it in a day
Every day, spend some time away from technology. Read a book or just do nothing
Make sure your employees develop these habits by the end of this quarter.
Remember, everyone is creative in their own ways. So, putting some effort into nurturing your employees’ creativity will eventually pay off.
Goal#2: Learn People Management
Every organization has employees of different age groups, backgrounds, and ideas. That means every employee’s way of working is different. To ensure everyone in a team is collaborative and a team player, organizations must include people management skills in their employees’ individual goals and objectives.
People management skills include strong communication, the ability to motivate others, patience, problem-solving, positivity, and honesty.
Some examples of practicing people management skills are:
Provide teammates or peers with feedback at least once a month until the end of Q4
Recognize one colleague’s work effort weekly by sending them an encouraging email for the next 6 months
Encourage inclusive work culture by involving everyone in a monthly brainstorming session till the end of this year
Involve employees in a monthly problem-solving session where every employee will solve one critical problem, given by their team leads or upper management, for the next six months
By improving people management skills in your employees, you build effective future leaders within the workforce.
Negotiation skill is vital for every individual in a business. It helps in reaching common ground in case of any confrontation and improves relationships in the workplace. Negotiation is also important for career growth.
Some of the characteristics of negotiation skills are- knowledge of the subject matter, listening skills, ability to express thought verbally, general intelligence and judgment, and patience.
Developing negotiation skills in employees must be a priority for 2023
To develop this skill, your employees need to:
A negotiation course
Find a good negotiation coach and have a monthly or biweekly meeting till Q4
Every month, keep an hour aside to try out new negotiation skills with a peer, until the end of this year
Coursera provides negotiation skills training “Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills”. In this course, your employees will learn about and practice the 4 steps of negotiation: Prepare (how to plan negotiation strategy), Negotiate (how to use key tactics for success), Close (how to create a contract), and Perform & Evaluate (the end game). Coursera also provides a Course Certificate on the successful completion of the course.
Goal#4: Practice Decision Making
Decision-making is a critical skill for anyone in an authorized position. So having a workforce that can make quick yet good decisions is something that makes an organization stand out. That’s why your employee goals and objectives list for 2025 should have decision-making in it.
Though it is a difficult skill to develop, if your employees actively involve themselves in the process, they can achieve significant long-term results.
What your employees need to do to improve decision-making skills:
Invest at least an hour every week to learn some basics of probability. It helps in improving one’s decision-making skills
Do not postpone any difficult decision that you are required to make for the next 3 months
Udemy offers an excellent course named “Decision Making: Mistakes, in Probability and Statistics,” which can improve your employees’ decision-making skills. This course is specially built for leaders and managers.
This course offers learnings on- common mistakes made in probability for everyday judgments and decisions, the psychological biases and fallacies that make us conclude wrongly, and how to use probability effectively during decision-making.
Emotional intelligence is one’s capability to recognize, manage, and use their own emotions in positive ways to empathize with others and overcome challenges. It helps you build stronger relationships at work and achieve your career goals. As a result, emotional intelligence becomes a critical skill for collaboration and working effectively in a team.
The skills involved in emotional intelligence are- self-awareness, motivation, social skills, and empathy.
To improve emotional intelligence, your employees:
Need to practice self-awareness thrice a week through self-reflection, noting down feelings and experiences, and reflecting on behavior throughout the year
Must practice active listening and pay attention to non-verbal cues when communicating with others
Many organizations are now switching to performance management software to automate and enhance setting up of employee goals and objectives. These tools provide real-time data on goals achievement and further help to increase employee accountability and transparency in the system.
Connect the dots across the entire employee experience. Get Engagedly.
Srikant Chellappa is the Co-Founder and CEO at Engagedly and is a passionate entrepreneur and people leader. He is an author, producer/director of 6 feature films, a music album with his band Manchester Underground, and is the host of The People Strategy Leaders Podcast. He is currently working on his next book, Ikigai at the Workplace, which is slated for release in the fall of 2024.