What are the Goals and Objectives of an Organization?
Goals are the desired outcomes of the business's activities. Objectives tend to be precise, measured actions, with time for completion. Generally, obtaining a goal will require completion or accomplishment of various objectives. As such, objectives can be thought of as pieces of a goal. While goals are often repeated over time, objectives tend to be specific and carried out during a single period - rather than repeated.
Goals and objectives tend to be broader at higher organizational levels. They become more specific, narrow, and time-specific at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy. Further, goals and objectives may be broken down by divisions, functional areas, groups or teams within the organization.
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What are the functions of goals in the organization?
Goals serve the following functions:
- Provide Guidance and Direction - Goals demonstrate to all parties involved where the company is going.
- Coordinate Planning and Actions - These individuals can see holistically why the individual objective being undertaken are important in accomplishing the company's mission.
- Motivate Employees - Employees are motivated by understanding the purpose of their actions. Also, goals can be tied to specific rewards for accomplishment.
- Facilitates Process Control - Goals allow companies to measure progress. Also, managers can evaluate the effectiveness of employees in accomplishing goals.
Generally, objectives serve the following functions:
- Further the overarching goals;
- Allow individuals to work specifically on one aspect of goal accomplishment;
- Allow managers to align the efforts of individuals and groups;
- Provide a timeline for accomplishment or completion;
- Identify specific desired results,
- Makes specific individuals are groups accountable for specific tasks, and
- Allow managers and employees to measure results.
A properly implemented organizing process should result in a work environment where all team members are aware of their responsibilities. If the organizing process is not conducted well, the results may yield confusion, frustration, loss of efficiency, and limited effectiveness.
In general, the organizational process consists of five steps (a flowchart of these steps is shown in Figure 1):
Objectives are the specific activities that must be completed to achieve goals. Plans shape the activities needed to reach those goals. Managers must examine plans initially and continue to do so as plans change and new goals are developed.
2.Determine the work activities necessary to accomplish objectives.
Although this task may seem overwhelming to some managers, it doesn't need to be. Managers simply list and analyze all the tasks that need to be accomplished in order to reach organizational goals.
3.Classify and group the necessary work activities into manageable units.
A manager can group activities based on four models of departmentalization: functional, geographical, product, and customer.
4.Assign activities and delegate authority.Managers assign the defined work activities to specific individuals. Also, they give each individual the authority (right) to carry out the assigned tasks.
5.Design a hierarchy of relationships.A manager should determine the vertical (decision‐making) and horizontal (coordinating) relationships of the organization as a whole. Next, using the organizational chart, a manager should diagram the relationships.