Sharing Your Goals With Your Workforce

Hello, I'm So Edwards, the MD of law hound and for the past 25 years have been helping professional service providers improve their client attraction and client retention rates. As an employment law specialist, I understand the challenges legal providers face and share the techniques I've used in creating an online business model with others. So let's get straight into discussing sharing goals with your workforce. Why share goals? Labour over whelming objective is to share objectives with you work for so irrespective of any professional standards which you might need to meet. We all need to manage our businesses, so that's it is effective and profitable. So that includes having clear goals and objectives and a plan of how you're going to achieve them. An effective team of people in the in the business who are going to help implement that plan on ultimately achieve those goals. Business owners, particularly professionals, have traditionally either being quite reluctant to openly share their organizations. Goals have been quite secretive about them working more readily on a need to know basis with staff or have spent insufficient time in sharing the goals because less time has been made available to manage the business is, all of the focus goes on for yearning. Whilst I'm certainly not suggesting sharing every single aspect of your business with employees, it's not required nor desirable sharing. At least some of those girls means that you tap into your most expensive and valuable resource for important support. So you need to ask yourself honestly, within the organization, Are you sharing goals and visions for the business? If so, where you stuff clear about what those girls are and what steps needed to reach them from? Do you share worries about your business on our stuff for their input? One of the benefits of sharing za study studies have shown that there are several better benefits to an organization which does share goals. One is improving operations at its most basic at level. If everybody's clear on what needs to be achieved than it will be much easier to make it happen on that enables you to move from strategic thinking to the execution, with everybody involved being clear about why something needs to happen and how it fits into the context of your business operations and plans on that supposed to being aware that it must happen, but not understanding any reasoning behind it and viewing it in isolation from you. Plan on possibly doubting your leadership skills as a result of not knowing the game plan in your head because it's not been communicated. It also increases employees for motivation and retention on whilst they're not business owners, they should feel invested in the business. Employees who don't feel like they have a stake in your business probably will be that will care about the business and if Andi, for example, about do anything unless they're asked to do it specifically well, that takes quite a lot of energy to do that, because you're constantly motivating somebody to do that job. And they feel disassociated from the business. So not involving them in the business. Cold culminates in a disconnection. A lack of relationship with the business owners, which leads to the US and them mentality one level and a lack of accountability from that member of staff on the other. When employers share organizational goals, employees can understand what needs to be achieved in why, which creates a feeling the team or we're all in this together and therefore there'll be much more motivated to make it happen on will. Generally b'more engaged, feel a greater sense of loyalty and commitment to your business, be more focused and will perform at a higher level and do things before they're us because they understand why they're being done and see themselves is partly responsible and lacked accountability is a powerful motivator. Sharing defined common goals creates a healthy and positive business culture. The feeling of everybody belonging to the same team on the great business culture, improved operations and motivated staffs means better client services as well as a more efficient and profitable business. Now it's less hassle for you is the business owner to working, overseeing a team that attempting to push them in the direction that you want them to go there, there, on the on the on the way. If you've executed executing Gates plans that everybody's clear on level had an opportunity to discuss. Let's look at defining in aligning goals before you share the goals. You need to have them crystal clear both in the short term, such as new clients, acquisition rates are building for the next month on then long term, such as expansion plans and market share goals for your locality or particular area of law. Now, of course, short term goals need to support the longer term ones, so you gotta step by step process so everybody knows exactly what that meant to be. Doing on this is quite tedious for most professional service providers, because you tend to see things. We tend to see things as a holistic picture on DSO, breaking it down into operational junk so that somebody can grab those and just do their bit. It is quite difficult because we're used to a trained and we tend to look a files and cases as a whole, but you have to do it. You have to break it down because you're explaining it to somebody else who may not have your whole vision. So you need to outline your goals easily, share them with employees and repeat them as necessary. Show how you plan to achieve them and get input. Tweak the plans based on that import on clarify what action needs to be taken right down to the last letter so that there's nothing gets missed on the whole process. Is there in black and white of somebody's off, sick or you need to pass it on for whatever reason that you know that that's going to be done on the next person can run. I'm on with that tusk, defining everybody's role and responsibilities in helping to achieve the goals and monitoring progress and success in achieving goals. It's worth noting that many businesses get to the stage of defining goals and committing them to paper quite easily that we've all seen the plans. But this is often to satisfy what needs what we think should be done, perhaps to comply with regulations as opposed to what you actually want to do and achieve on. It's not a criticism, but rather an acceptance that, particularly with smaller professional business, is selling the time and knowledge the focus always referred to reverses a default to billable hours. So breaking down sharing goals takes time, and that process towards achievement takes time to plan, and you have to die. Arise it. I know from running our own a small business for hundreds of years that you you have to put that in your diary just a she would with a client appointment or it will not get. I found that using a tool that there's a number of Jeffrey ones, this one called asana. There s a n a dot com, which is quite clunky, but but free on. There's also base camp, which is a lot less clunky, which enables you to use a project tool which everybody can access, and you can set different standards of access eso that you ever. There's an overview in a timeline for everybody, and I found those sorts of tools very helpful for this sort of project management work, especially at the beginning, when there's a lot going on and you want to have set dates and times, it takes a lot of the pressure off. Let's look next, it aligning goals. So once you've defined organizational goals, you also need to ensure that those are set for individual individuals are aligned with their goals as well. Now, normally, businesses have a system of setting targets and goals for individuals, whether it's a through appraisal or something similar. How often off, However, often these relates solely to the individual employees, only Martin talking about here is a better way forward, which takes into account the needs often desires of the business based on business goals. You've set the needs and desires of the individual employees, but also maps across to collective needs and desires of the individuals within the organization. When that's in my mind, best done initially at least on a spreadsheet, so that you've got it all there in black and white on git makes it a lot easier to see where things could go astray. Now bombing needs. I mean, meeting the essential elements which ensure that an employee can perform the role required on the business achieves the core standards. So we keep on going back to the master plan on by desires. I mean here also the realistic ideals of the employer employees in business would like to achieve. So, for example, you've got a post available for a role which is part of your master plan to expand a particular department. Now you've not shared this with anybody at the moment. Eso only the business owners know on. Do you have an employee whose ideal job would be that new role? They don't know that you have this in mind, are so already disbanding from your business and they're starting to actively look for new roles which meet those criteria. So how do you share goals so that everybody knows what's going on? Well effective communication sits at the heart on Did. It might be obvious, but it's essential. And I say this because in a busy professional office environment, it can be really difficult to make time to do this because of the pressures of the clients that you serving. And you might even feel resentful of the time. And I certainly have in the past that you spend when you know earning fees or you feel destructive or distracted or stressed because of this. But sharing goals opens up a deeper communication on bills trust to a deeper, more meaningful relationship with employees, so taking time out to do this will help make things run more smoothly. Long term for you. A ZMA touches it will for the other person. Andi. I found that organizational meetings, preferably short, you know, under 30 minutes, certainly 20 minutes. If you can do that weekly or fortnightly. Those are excellent for the bullet points, informing staff aligning projects and rolls to the organizations or organizations goals. I'm making sure that those are being kept for front of mind setting standards for effective communication and openess within the organization, creating a more transparent culture because it makes for a lot less little gossiping cliques within the organization. If they know that once a week everybody's having a chance for their say on DIT cement your organization, goals and priorities, there's nothing like repeating the messages dollars that may appear on a week in week out basis to really hammer the message home. Now, despite the number of employees in the organisation that you CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg still holds a weekly meeting with his stuff on and they are able to raise any questions that they want. He says that it's an important power to Facebook's culture. People ask thoughtful questions about why are companies going in certain directions what I think about things happening in the world on how we can continue improving our services for everybody? I learn a lot from the Cuban A's on the questions people ask. Help us build better services. Also, you could have a look at 1 to 1 meetings. Now, obviously, most businesses have an annual appraisal session with an employee where the whole of 1 to 1 meeting, which is of course, essential. But they you might rarely make the opportunity to doom or than this, other than to, for example, discussed matters which are very specific to the job. So looking a particular file client or project, or something that's become a problem is normally how businesses that interact with each other, managers and owners and stuff now regular updates which focus on the individual. Rather, the matters which relate to work are advantageous for several reasons. They don't have to be long on. They don't have to be every week. They certainly t look. It may be doing it every six weeks with the the core team members and then maybe every quarter with others that so you've got an opportunity to focus on that one individual employees to time and get to know them particularly useful If an employee is quite shy and reserved and feels uncomfortable at voicing their opinions in a larger group where maybe more dominant personalities take center stage when it creates an understanding between you as you get to know more about each other, it forges and more meaningful relationship which contained creates a feeling of loyalty and ownership of the business in that Theo employees enables you to get a better understanding what drives and motivates them, as well as them learning about skills, about more about their skills, which you might not have realized. That the employees had a wanted to learn and vice versa with you that they learn a little bit more about what drives you on understanding the employees in their current situation, becoming aware of any issues much faster so you can resolve them very quickly and without being formal before they become a big issue. So once you've shared the girls with the employees, you need them to collect their input on DSO. Listening is a vital component of communication and know. Most businesses get input regarding girls from managers that may overlook of the members of stuff, so getting input from employees directly means you get a variety of perspectives. You get early input from those who you are expecting to implement your plans, which could be enlightening. Employees feel more in control of what they're doing well feel frustrated when girls and priorities to set without any input from us on, we can see holes in the plans to achieve them on your buying will be greater. Now employees can feel frustrated when owners and managers set goals and priorities without consulting them. That there was that the people who, after all, they're going to help implement your plans. So once you have input from your employees, you can make any changes, a tweaks to the plant. And if you're not taking on board a particular area, which they consider has is a serious input, then you need to explain to them why you don't want to get to the situation where employees stop giving input because they feel that there's never any action taken because of it, because that could be exceptionally de motivating if they understand why you contact on it, even though they might disagree, there will be a greater degree of acceptance, and then you, once you've defined and align the goals and taken on a lot the input you could finalize your plan of how there's an organization you're going to reach that plant. Andi, ultimately a business owner, of course, is responsible for the success of failure of the business. But delegating these tasks, which form part of the plan to individual employees, will improve your chances of success. So taking tasks which form part of the plan and delegating authority to individuals and all teams of depart in apartments to empower them to complete the workers dis required is valuable. So, for example, if your aim is to increase revenue by 500,000 in the next year, you create individual objectives and team objectives four departments or areas of work to bring, say, a portion of that total. So if you plan to in a tender or a contract, or achieve a quality award, then you break down the individual tasks required and give each one to an individual or team so that there's a shared responsibility for each element within the whole team involved. This will enable your staff to create objectives themselves and give him the authority or, if you like, empower them to take responsibility and carry out the tasks to achieve their agreed objective. So having authority brings responsibility and accountability for achieving the agreed targets to make sure that it's clear that the employees or team commitments includes regular communication back to you, accounting for the use of organizations re sources, including time regular reporting of results against the plan on that. Say that again. I I think that's where something a tool like base camp really comes into play because you can have a look at it without having to have a dialogue with somebody in on its there. The data is there in in the tool referring decisions which teams are not empowered to take. So they know the line of command on effective and timely escalation of problems to get additional support where needed in terms of resource is you'll need to devote some resource is to achieving three goals, and they should be built into your business plan, particularly if you've effectively allying the goals with individuals plans. So, for example, making sure that any training that agreed was necessary actually happens on that People have sufficient time in between servicing clients to ensure that effective progress is made. So if somebody is flat out because they're covering for another member of staff, for example, that needs to be addressed before more work is piled on them. Coordinator, a project manager. I really would advocate that you ensure that somebody other than you takes responsibility for coordinating the overall plan, so you'll need to appoint to project manager with good self management in time management skills. Who reports to the partners directed business. Sonus on Coordinating will generally involve planning, monitoring and controlling of all aspects of the implementation of the plan on ensuring that everybody remains motivated to achieve the objectives on time and to the specified cost, quality and performance. And you can include measures within that roll. To see Teoh brought about see what good looks like so that everybody has an idea of what they're, what quality that they're aiming for, and then ensuring, obviously, that there are sufficient resources, including time. I'm measuring a monitoring performance and achievement against at the criteria decided on now just a business. Owners expect to be updated ast to progress in chief and achieving goals from individuals or team certain teams. So do employees. So agree regular updates with the whole organization and make sure that they happen again. A sound like a bit of a base camp fun. But that's something else that can be drawn off base camp when it's kept up to date properly by way of a report, so that that makes life easier for you to share what's going on on Ben Rewards again. It might seem obvious, but you need to make it clear how the achievement of your goals will impact on the employees ultimately. So, for example, if one of the goals is an increase in revenue, But will that mean an increase in salary? Always it and investment in new staff? Because there's been a staff shortage that couldn't be funded out of the old revenue totals? Or is it equipment to make their jobs easier and more pleasant? So money is not the only motivator for employees. So alongside setting objectives, you need to examine your reward strategy to ensure that the reward for employees is something that they want and something which motivates them at some level, the most cost effective reward strategies Folk focus on total rewards where there are four key areas so compensation or pay benefits, recognition and appreciation. Thank you for your time in joining me on this short seminar. Please look at the other titles around this subject and other practice management topics on the data law website