Employee goal-setting is one of the best ways to ensure your staff’s objectives are aligned with company goals, which — if you’ve developed those correctly — pull you down the long road to achieving your corporate vision.

“Goal-setting gives you focus,” says Gary Latham, professor of organizational effectiveness at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “It gives you a standard by which you can evaluate yourself and the people who report to you. It gives people a sense of purpose, and attaining the goals gives them a sense of accomplishment.”

Here are the top tips for getting the most from employee goal setting:

Set the context. Before an employee can set relevant goals, he needs have a full grasp of the company’s objectives. “The people who write the mission statement know what it means, so they assume that everyone else understands — but that’s usually not the case,” says Helen Wilkie, a Toronto-based communications specialist. She suggests reading out snippets of your mission statement and asking employees what it means to them. If they have interpreted things incorrectly, this is a good opportunity to correct misperceptions.

Involve each employee in her individual goal setting, rather than simply handing her a list you’ve come up with on your own. “The data show that when you set participative goals, they’re often higher than when the boss assigns them unilaterally,” says Latham.

Be specific, and set time limits. “If the goals are vague, there’s a tendency to pat ourselves on the back undeservedly,” says Latham. Instead of asking an employee to increase sales, for instance, ask her to aim to increase sales by 15% within the next four months.

Don’t weigh employees down with too many goals. “No more than three to seven goals at a time,” Latham warns. “And three is better than seven because the whole benefit of goal-setting is focus. If you have thirty-seven goals, you can’t focus.”

Share your own personal goals. “This helps build trust,” says Wilkie. “It also helps employees realize they have to be working on their goals, too; that it’s something everyone in the company is doing.”

Make sure the goals aren’t too easy. “Easy goals don’t give you a sense of challenge or accomplishment. High goals do,” says Latham. While there can be value in “easy wins” to help give employees a sense of progress, ensure that each employee has at least one challenging goal to aspire to. If you’re using a rewards system, provide bigger payouts for the more difficult goals.

Set aside the necessary resources to help employees achieve the goals you agree on. If you want an employee to improve his Excel skills, for example, then pay for him to take a night course.

Set a schedule to monitor progress. (Schedules will vary depending on the goal.) “When managers just pay lip service to something like this, it doesn’t work,” says Wilkie. “Employees have to feel like this is a serious thing and everybody’s committing to it. It’s not just another set of commands coming down from on high.”

Provide specific, actionable feedback. If an employee is struggling to reach his goal, point out what he’s doing wrong to make sure he gets back on track. Latham calls this “outcome expectancy.” “Help people see the relationship between what they’re doing and what they are or are not attaining,” he says. Alternatively, if you observe an employee doing something well, take the time to point it out so he’ll remember it.

Reward progress, even if the employee doesn’t fully achieve the goal. Don’t dump on someone for achieving a 13% sales boost instead of the 15% goal. Aside from the obvious negative effects on morale, punishing employees for not fully attaining their goals just teaches them to set the bar lower next time, Latham warns. — By Annette Bourdeau

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