What can I learn from this page? | An overview on how to create, update, track and view goals within the platform |
Who is this guide for? | Performance Users |
Quick Links:
The goals feature allows you to track progress on work and development goals. There are four different categories of goals:
Individual
Team
Department
Company
What's more, you can tag individual goals as development or business to clarify your goal focus.
Who can create goals?
All users can create individual and team goals and those with account permissions can create department and company goals. See: User roles and permissions in Performance
All users can create individual goals.
Members of a team can create team goals. Learn more about team goals.
Department and Company goals require account permissions. The Account Administrator handles account permissions at your organization.
TIP: Explore our courses about goals in Culture Amp Training for employees, managers, and administrators.
Create and Customize an Individual Goal
To view, create, or edit individual goals, click Goals in the top navigation. From here, you can create any goal type. Go to the action button in the top right corner of the page, use the dropdown to select the desired goal type.
As you create an individual goal, add specifics:
Goal title: What is the main objective of the goal?
Description (optional): Why is the goal important, and what is the plan to achieve it?
Due date: What specific date would you like to have this goal accomplished?
Goal type (optional): Tag your goal as business or development.
Visibility: Who should have access? Choose from Everyone in the company, Manager only, Only me, or Specify Users.
Priority (optional): Is the priority level low, medium, or high?
Key Results (optional): What key results should be used to track and achieve the goal?
Goal Owner(s): What colleagues should be accountable for managing the goal?
Alignment (optional): Should the goal align with a team goal, department goal, and/or a company goal?
Once you select “+ Add a new key result (optional)”, the Key results section opens and a new key result can be added with the default values or more specific values.
Creating goals from an existing goal (Copy)
Rather than creating a goal from scratch, our tool allows users to copy a goal and paste it into a different part of the organization. This feature can help save time by freeing up the ability for team members to take existing organizational goals and personalize them according to their plans and priorities. It also encourages users to participate more fully in the goal-setting process.
A goal can be copied at any level (individual, team, department, or company). Restrictions will depend on your authorization level (e.g., an administrator could copy a company goal) and the visibility setting on the goal (e.g., a goal visible to anyone can be copied).
To copy a goal from an existing goal, select the goal you wish to copy, and select copy from the menu:
The goal will now be copied, and users can replace existing details to personalize them according to needs and priorities. For example, users might wish to copy an existing team goal and insert it into the next performance period.
Most of the information on the copied goal is retained, including:
Key results (which get initialized); and
Goal alignments
Click Create to complete the process.
Invite Others to Collaborate
If you want to invite a colleague to collaborate with you on an individual goal, @ mention them in the goal's comments section.
If it’s common for more than two people to collaborate on a goal in your organization, consider using Team goals.
Track Individual Goal Progress
Update key results to track progress on goals. Goal progress is displayed and includes the average of all the key results. You can mark a goal as blocked when you are unable to progress. Your manager will receive an in platform notification when a goal is marked as blocked.
Information on the science and best practices for creating and tracking great goals:
View Goals Across Your Organization
Get a snapshot view of all visible and aligned goals in your organization via the tree view.
You can view goals that others have shared with you by clicking on an employee's profile picture. Go to the Find a colleague tile, click Search directory. Then search for the colleague, click their profile tile, and click the Goals tab.
Managers can see all of the individual goals created by their direct reports. Go to Goals and select Direct reports goals to see all goals in one view.
Account Administrators can see goals that have the visibility marked "Everyone" or "My Manager." Go to Goals and select Reporting under Admin. Account Administrators cannot view goals that have visibility set to "Yourself."
Assign Goal Owners
You can assign any user as a goal owner for any goal. When you assign a goal owner, the user receives a notification that a goal has been assigned to them and who assigned it. Goal owners can remove themselves from a goal.
If a goal has been set to Manager Only and the goal has multiple owners, the managers of those Goal owners will be able to view the goal even if they are not a Goal Owner themselves.
NOTE: Goal Ownership Transfer (when a goal is created on behalf of another user, the goal creator removes themselves as an owner and the goal ownership is completely transferred over to the user the goal has been created for)
When a Goal Ownership Transfer has occurred, the Goal Creator (and Goal Creators Manager via the Digest if enabled) will continue to receive the notifications of updates rather than the newly assigned Goal Owner(s)
The Goal creator can still access the goal via the notifications and may see the option to 'Edit', although any Edits made will not be saved
If the Goal Owner is deactivated, the ownership will partially transfer back to the Goal Creator and will therefore show under the Goal Creators name in Admin reporting
When do we recommend assigning goal owners?
While you are able to assign goals to individuals by making them a goal owner, keep in mind that employees are more motivated and committed to complete goals if they participate in the goal-setting process. Here are the most common and recommended use cases for assigning goal owners:
Administrators can assign company goals to executives who may not have time to input their own goals into Culture Amp
Anyone can add multiple goal owners to a goal to create a sense of shared ownership - rarely is a goal truly owned by a single individual!
Managers can assign goals to their direct reports - to make sure they are equally motivated as if they had participated in the goal-setting, be sure to:
Explain the rationale behind the goal
Set appropriately challenging goals and be open to your direct report’s feedback on the goal