It’s a common practice in most organizations to have employers set goals and targets for their employees. Setting achievable deadlines for the task has been hailed for its ability to yield great results. Contrary to the expectations, some employers set some unrealistic goals for their employees that are hard to achieve. Other employers expect and push their workers to achieve results with limited resources or under a meager budget. While protocols dictate that it’s healthy for employers to set achievable goals for their employees, being too super ambitious by setting hard to achieve goals may lead to frustration and burnout to your employees. As Shalom Lamm explains, organizations need to set attainable goals to their employees and avoid setting unachievable goals leading to workplace burnout. The following are some of the consequences businesses and organizations can suffer from setting unattainable goals for their employees. Some of these effects are long-term, while others have immediate results.
Short Term Effects of Setting Unrealistic Goals
Goal setting is one of the profound ways of achieving tremendous results in an organization. Some goals push staff to perform optimally and become the best of what they get intended to achieve. Consequently, not all plans and targets turn out to be productive. Some goals breed a negative impact on the business, especially on the employees. Suppose an organization tends to set unachievable goals for its employees. In that case, there are some short-term indicators or effects that can tell the organization is on the wrong trajectory.
Missing on Delivery Dates
Shalom Lamm notes that when an organization starts noticing a pattern of employees missing to meet their targets deadline understand that this is a red flag. In most cases, the problem is not with the employee, but the targets meant to get achieved. The managers responsible should first question why their staff is underachieving their goals before thinking of any disciplinary actions.
Reduction in Quality of Work
When employers push their employees to achieve unrealistic goals, one possible outcome is that employees rush their work without proper consideration. One of the aspects that suffers such actions is the quality of work submitted. Most employees tend to submit work that has errors, mistakes, and of poor quality.
Increased Cases of Employee Absenteeism
A frustrated workforce tends to get stressed up, and in most cases, they will take time off to manage their stress-related illnesses. Very high expectations getting placed on employees only increases pressure on them.
Like short-term effects, unrealistic goals and expectations on employees come with some long-term impact on business. The following are some of the long-term effects of having such a practice in an organization.
Reduced/ Low Staff Morale
The majority of staff get excited and energized about achieving their targets. However, when they constantly miss their targets, most of them tend to feel that they are not performing. Such a situation has adverse effects on their self-esteem, productivity, and motivation.
Employees Lower Their Targets
Constant failure to achieve targets becomes acceptable in an organization, and with time employees accept it as a norm. With such a kind of approach, employees lose their drive to achieve more, something quite unfortunate for the entire organization and future projects.