Set and Achieve Business Goals in a Start-up With an Employee Management Software
Every business or organization has specific objectives that it sets out to achieve. However, the first step is to identify these goals or objectives by stepping back and assessing your business from a macro-level perspective. Only then can you have a clear insight into the goals that are important for your business. Consider an example of a start-up. There are hundreds of tasks to be done and key organizational goals may not be clear too. However, to run a successful business, it is important to utilize your time on tasks and things that are value-adding and cut down on non-productive activities. This helps in determining your organizational or business goals. If you are still confused about setting and achieving your business goals, using the right employee management software could be the solution for you.
Why are business goals important?
Imagine doing a task without planning. Don’t you think your chances of succeeding will be reduced? Having clear business goals is important to create a structure or framework for your company or business. This enables your business to expand and attain success. Having specific business goals also helps you stay focused on the outcome and track your progress. Having said that, when you are establishing your business goals, you must remember the specific requirements of your business. Let’s take an example. Small to medium-sized business owners may aim for growth goals like improving revenue or enhancing the customer base. But for a start-up business, focusing on foundational goals like creating a robust business model or having a good reputation is more important. To set the right business goals, you must ensure that your goals are SMART, which means- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Read on to find out more about how to determine, prioritize, and then attain your business goals.
How to decide, prioritize, and accomplish your business goals
1. Assess the previous year
Once you have evaluated the past few months, you should consider how the previous year went for your business. It’s always better to also take the opinions of your team to understand what the best practices, learnings, and failures were in the previous year. Take lessons from what resulted in the success of the projects or your business as a whole and implement them in the next year. Having said that, the past year’s misses are also a big indication of where the loopholes lie and what are the areas of improvement. This helps to determine what kind of measures are needed to be taken. Mostly, you may need to reallocate or re-align resources to the challenging areas. Or your business may need improvement in areas such as marketing, human resource management, operations, or finance. However, each review must be followed with detailed plans for leveraging the business’ strengths and then resolving or improving the weak areas. Resource management software can help you with this task and also enable you to create the robust resource and project plans.
2. Apply the theory of constraints
Have you heard of the theory of constraints? This theory enables priority management, which in turn, helps you to reach your business goals. The theory of constraints is basically a business priority matrix that helps in aligning all the activities towards the business goals. This further helps to successfully accomplish a major goal. However, to do this, you must have an understanding of your existing challenges and how you can resolve them. After identifying your business goals, the next step should be to determine the tasks required to accomplish them. Note that each of these tasks you list should be directly correlated to your business goals. Another important factor to implement the theory of constraints is being aware of the blockers or obstacles in your business and then removing them. If you succeed in doing this, you can improve your business’ output and eradicate the factors that are in no way contributing to attaining your goal.
3. List down the obstacles or blockers you are facing
Other than creating a detailed project and resource plan, it is important to list down all the challenges or obstacles that you are facing, which are stopping you from achieving your goal. Do this brainstorming and create a list of every such blocker. It is important to identify and list these challenges, as only then can you find possible solutions. Implementing the right resource scheduling software can help you identify such challenges and streamline your processes.
4. Create attainable milestones
While you establish your business goals, remember to align them with the vision of your business or organization. This will enable you to be more tactical. In addition, you should always create achievable milestones that can be broken down into smaller goals or targets. For example, if you have an annual sales target, it’s also important to set quarterly goals to raise the sales by some percentage every couple of months. Resource management software aids in creating comprehensive plans and breaking them down into smaller achievable tasks and sub-tasks.
5. Determine how to measure each goal
The next step is to think of ways you would measure each goal to evaluate your progress. You can determine key performance indicators or KPIs to assess your progress toward each target or goal. For instance, if your objective is to enhance employee satisfaction, your key performance indicator would be a 90% or higher score on monthly/quarterly employee surveys.
6. Set a time limit for your goals
Now, you should set a clear time limit or deadline for each business goal. Determining a clear deadline for each of your goals enables you to stay focused on achieving them. To set such a time limit, consider the available resources, the length of each task, and the process of achieving each goal. It is also important to decide on a realistic timeline that is achievable with the resources at hand. Resource management software can help you set realistic deadlines and help your team attain them.
7. Measure your progress at each step
After your business goals are set, you must evaluate the progress at regular intervals. Decide a date to monitor each goal and keep recording your progress. For instance, you could measure the KPIs you have established once a week or once a month and record the metrics. You can save this data in an Excel sheet and evaluate your progress over time. But spreadsheets are tough to manage; hence, transitioning to a cloud-based employee management software is a wise thing to do. Such a tool helps in setting your KPIs and then tracking your progress in a few easy steps.
8. Choose a Resource Management Software such as eResource Scheduler
Choosing an intuitive, easy-to-understand, affordable, and customizable resource management software such as eResource Scheduler is your best bet. This tool offers a comprehensive picture of your operational metrics, all your resources, and projects on one screen. You can easily create detailed plans, track progress and status, and manage your resources more efficiently. You get all this and more along with a personalized trial and support. This leading employee management software’s brilliant features like user access rights, unlimited projects, bookings, the exclusive timesheet module, and gap reporting enable you to maximize your productivity, and profitability by streamlining your resource scheduling and management. So, if you have any questions or wish to implement eResource Scheduler, book your free trial today.
