Operational Goals: 7 Tips for Setting Actionable Business Goals

Operational goals are time-bound business objectives or key performance indicators (KPIs) companies use to stay on track and function on a day-to-day basis. Business owners and managers flesh out wider-angle strategic planning with these short-term goals so people know what they must achieve in a more immediate time frame. Setting operational objectives like these can assist greatly with streamlining a company’s workflow.

Operational goals are real-time and short-term targets for team members to achieve, while strategic objectives are broader, long-term goals that are often more aspirational than pragmatic.

As an object lesson, suppose a human resource team sets a strategic goal to reduce employee turnover and increase retention. This serves as the overall objective to devote their time and resources. Still, they need to break this goal down into actionable, operational steps to achieve it.

Imagine the human resources team (or HR team) decides they will achieve this strategic goal by interviewing team members in the upcoming month to ask for feedback about improving the workplace. This operational goal gives them something concrete to work toward to increase morale and improve the day-to-day operations of the company.

Teams must set goals well in the short term to hit long-term targets. Keep these seven tips in mind as you optimize your operational goal-setting:

1. 1. Align with broader strategic goals. Every operational goal should correlate to a broader strategic goal. Both types of business goals are essential to keep a company striving toward greatness. For instance, suppose a business sets a broad strategic goal to increase its market share. The next step would be to form a set of operational goals to achieve that strategic objective in a pragmatic, step-by-step way.
2. 2. Break operational goals into smaller targets. Once you have a concrete operational goal, try to break it down into milestones for your team. These smaller organizational goals should make it easy for people to focus on daily tasks while still working toward the bigger objective. You can also use automation software and technology to assist employees in meeting these objectives. That way, everyone spends less time on more peripheral tasks and more time meeting core objectives.
3. 3. Communicate with relevant stakeholders. Make sure all team members are in the know about your operational goals. The sooner you debrief them, the sooner they can work on their own methodology for achieving those objectives and key results (or OKRs). Empower employees to engage in their own decision-making as to how they can best meet targets like these. Above all, foster a communicative work environment, giving everyone insight into who’s doing what to reach operational milestones.
4. 4. Create actionable steps. As you spearhead new initiatives and set new operational goals, give your team a concrete action plan. Creating a workable template for every project is an essential aspect of operations management. People need to receive explicit instruction as to how you’ll all work together to get things done. Break up operational goals into daily or weekly tasks employees can complete on a rolling basis.
5. 5. Define your overall business strategy. When setting company goals, it’s important to know what your company’s core business strategy should be. For instance, a nonprofit likely has different operational needs than a small business, and you’ll need to factor that into all other planning. For that matter, business strategy might be different from one very similar company to the next. One might focus on churning out new products constantly while another dedicates itself to improving its current goods.
6. 6. Focus on specific metrics. Try to be as specific as possible when you set operational goals. Strategic goals can be nebulous, but operational goals must be concrete, time-bound, and actionable. Practice setting SMART goals (standing for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) with your team. Rather than saying you want to improve customer satisfaction, increase sales, or reduce production costs, iron out how you’ll do these things, create a plan to do so, and then set a deadline.
7. 7. Set concrete deadlines. To meet longer-term goals, you need to meet smaller deadlines along the way. Create an operational plan to ensure you complete everything you need according to the due dates. Focus on setting goals with achievable deadlines to set everyone up for success.

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