As a business owner, have you written down a list of goals that need to be achieved in order to bring about success this year? If so, then you are one of the few. Most business owners don’t prepare this list of priorities and end up creating a business plan that fails to communicate the company’s strategy to employees. One way to avoid this is to get employees’ input when developing your business plan. Doing so will help them understand the company’s goals, strategy and overall production process.
Here are four steps to help encourage employee input in your business planning process:
Ask for their feedback. Ask employees for a list of three things they think the organization is doing well and three things that it could improve on. Then brainstorm together how your company can continue to do what’s working and fix or stop doing things that aren’t helping the business.
Have them set goals for the business. Within each department, have your employees establish specific goals that will help contribute to the overall success of the company.
Build a plan off their ideas. Your business plan should reflect employees’ input. Let your employees read the plan to make sure they agree with your strategy.
Meet and update your goals monthly. It’s much easier to attain smaller, monthly goals than large, annual ones. Checking in once a month to assess your progress will help make those targets much more attainable.
For more information on how to involve employees in your business’ strategy and goals, please visit Entrepreneur.