Goal Setting Resources

Follow these seven principles to create effective goals that connect to purpose, align with individual strengths and team priorities, and provide a clear action plan.

1. Connect to Purpose: Start with the "why." Clear goals connect individual contributions to the broader team and organizational vision, fostering a sense of purpose and engagement.
2. Focus Matters: Prioritizing 1–2 key goals per quarter or 3–4 overarching goals per year avoids burnout and enables meaningful progress.
3. Play to Strengths: Leveraging individual strengths makes goals feel less like obligations and more like opportunities. Tools like CliftonStrengths can help identify talents that energize you.
4. Align Priorities: Goals that reflect team and organizational objectives create cohesion and accountability, ensuring everyone contributes to the broader mission.
5. Be Specific: Use frameworks like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic, Time-bound) or OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to craft goals that are clear and actionable. Specificity eliminates ambiguity and creates shared understanding.
6. Plan to Achieve: Break large goals into smaller milestones, and identify the concrete tasks needed to achieve each one. Mapping goals to a hierarchy helps you develop behaviors that lead to the ultimate objective.
7. Beware of Stretch Goals: Motivation peaks when goals feel challenging but achievable. Goals in the "danger zone" of overreach can backfire, leading to disengagement rather than inspiration.

How we set goals matters as much as which goals we set. Top performers distinguish themselves by working with greater clarity and intention. Fewer, purposeful goals, aligned with both individual strengths and organizational priorities outperform multiple cascaded goals that lack purpose or attainability.

Agile Goal Setting

Goals should evolve as priorities change. An agile approach means adjusting or adding goals throughout the year vs. treating as set-it-and-forget-it commitments. Regular review and refinement keeps your goals relevant and aligned throughout the year.

 

Workday includes several goal-setting features to support your performance management process. Some are optional tools you can use anytime, while others are required tasks tied to performance reviews and check-ins.

This section covers:

• New Hire Goal Setting
• Annual and Quarterly Goal Setting
• Additional Goal-Setting Tools in Workday
• Viewing Your Goals
• Manager Guide: Cascading and Approving Goals

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For All Employees

New Hire, Annual, and Quarterly Goal Setting Tasks

All eligible staff receive performance tasks in their Workday inbox to document their goals. Review your entity-specific PM webpage for eligibility criteria. Generally, this includes Academic Regular Staff, Medical Center Regular and Wage Staff, and UPG Regular and Wage Staff.

When you'll receive goal-setting tasks:

• New Hires: Within 30 days of your start date
• Annual Reviews: During your scheduled review period
• Quarterly Check-Ins: If your school or unit participates in quarterly reviews

Viewing Goals from a Previous Review or New Hire Task

Through Your Workday Profile:

1. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner
2. Select "View Profile" from the drop-down menu
3. Click "Performance" in the left-hand menu
4. Select the "Performance Review" tab at the top of the page
5. Click "View" next to your previous performance review

Setting Goals Outside of Required Tasks

You can set goals throughout the year outside of required inbox tasks using the Goals page in your worker profile. However, these goals will not populate in your annual review or quarterly check-in. You are responsible for archiving old or completed goals if you wish to remove them from your goals page.

How to Access Your Goals Page:

Through Your Workday Profile:

1. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner
2. Select "View Profile" from the drop-down menu
3. Click "Performance" in the left-hand menu
4. Select the "Goals" tab at the top of the page

What You Can Do:

• Create new goals at any time
• View all current and past goals
• Edit goals as priorities shift
• Archive completed or outdated goal

Important: Any goals you create for yourself are sent to your manager for review and approval. Your manager has the ability to view, edit, or create goals for you at anytime. 

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For Managers

Managing Goals for Individual Employees Outside of Required Tasks

You may set employee goals anytime using the Goals page in their worker profile. Note: These goals will not populate in annual reviews or quarterly check-ins. Archive old or completed goals to remove them from the page.

1. Open the employee's profile by selecting them from your Team Org Chart or searching their name
2. Click "Performance" in the left-hand menu
3. Select the "Goals" tab at the top of the page

From here, you can view, create, and manage any of their goals.

Viewing Goals from a Previous Review or New Hire Task

Through Workday Profile:

1. Open an employee's profile by selecting them from your Team Org Chart or searching their name
2. Click "Performance" in the left-hand menu
3. Select the "Performance Review" tab at the top of the page
4. Click "View" next to the previous performance review

Cascading Goals to Multiple Employees

1. Type "Add Goal to Employees" in the Workday search bar to open the task
2. Choose whether to create a new goal or copy an existing one
3. Select which employees to assign the goal to

Leaders can cascade goals to their entire supervisory org, including both direct and indirect reports. However, while cascading goals is useful, it can easily backfire. Cascading meaning and purpose is much more important than cascading the goals themselves.

Approving Employee-Created Goals

Any goals created by an employee will route to your Workday inbox for review and approval.

You have three options:

• Approve the goal as written
• Edit the goal before approving (you can make changes directly)
• Send back or deny the goal with feedback

 

These examples are meant to demonstrate what effective goals look like in practice. Each goal follows the seven principles and includes sample tasks to illustrate breaking larger objectives into concrete steps.

Academic Examples

Technician Example

Reduce emergency after-hours calls by 25% by end of 2026 by implementing monthly preventive checks on high-use systems and documenting recurring issues for proactive repair.

Sample Tasks:

• Create preventive maintenance schedule for 12 highest-use areas by March 20th.
• Log all service calls in shared tracker and flag any system with 2+ calls for priority assessment.

Analyst Example

Reduce inquiry response time from 3 days to 1 day by end of 2026 by creating a shared reference guide of common variance explanations and scheduling weekly office hours for department questions.

Sample Tasks:

• Draft reference guide with top 10 variance scenarios by March 31st.
• Set up recurring Tuesday office hours (10-11 AM) and communicate schedule to all department liaisons.

Marketing Example

Increase social media engagement by 40% by end of 2026 by posting athlete spotlight stories twice weekly and coordinating with student-athletes to share content to their personal accounts.

Sample Tasks:

• Create athlete spotlight content calendar for April-June by March 20th.
• Meet with 5 student-athletes by end of March to explain content sharing process and get buy-in.

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Health Examples

Nurse Example

Achieve 90% compliance with bedside handoff protocol on the unit by end of 2026 by using the existing SBAR checklist and conducting peer observations during the first two weeks of each month.

Sample Tasks:

• Schedule and complete peer observations for all shift transitions during weeks 1-2 of April.
• Review monthly compliance data with unit manager and identify barriers.

For more nurse specific examples, visit the Nursing Center for Excellence Professional Development Goals webpage and review the RN goal repository.

Patient Access Example

Reduce average call wait time from 8 minutes to 5 minutes by 2026 by blocking dedicated callback hours each afternoon and proactively reaching out to patients who abandoned calls the previous day.

Sample Tasks:

• Block 2-4 PM daily for callbacks starting April 1st.
• Pull abandoned call report each morning and prioritize outreach by appointment urgency

Therapist Example

Increase documentation of patient-reported outcome measures from 65% to 85% by end of 2026 by incorporating standardized questions into initial evaluations and setting a daily reminder to complete entries before end of shift.

Sample Tasks:

• Add standardized outcome questions to evaluation template by March 15th
• Set 4 PM daily phone reminder to review and complete any missing outcome documentation

We offer in-person training, lunch-and-learns, and one-on-one consulting for managers and teams upon request.

Email AskHR@virginia.edu with the subject line "PM Training" and a member of the performance team will reach out to you.

Required

Use only UVA-approved AI tools.

Do not upload university work information to unapproved AI platforms. UVA-approved, enterprise-protected tools for Generative AI have the added privilege of enterprise security, meaning what you tell it and upload stays within UVA.

Effective vs. Ineffective AI Use in Performance Management

Effective AI Uses:

• Refining goals and vision: Sharing your organization, department, or team vision along with your initial goals, then asking AI to suggest edits or brainstorm refinements.
• Enhancing clarity: Creating bullet points of accomplishments and development areas, then asking AI to improve clarity, conciseness, or flag subjective language.
• Getting permission: Asking your employee or colleague if they are OK with you uploading their created work to AI (self-evaluation, goals, feedback), or transcribing a conversation with AI.
• Transcribing 1:1 notes: Using MS Teams Transcription and Recap features to automatically generate meeting notes.
• Verifying accuracy: Asking AI to provide sources and verify the accuracy of its responses.

Ineffective AI Uses:

• Copy-pasting generic content: Asking AI to write your vision, purpose, or goals, then copying and pasting them as your own.
• Violating privacy: Uploading someone's self-evaluation or other created work, or transcribing a conversation, without their permission or knowledge.
• Trusting without verification: Assuming AI output is accurate and appropriate.

AI is a tool to enhance clarity and efficiency but should complement authentic, thoughtful input. For questions regarding AI use specific to performance management (reviews, goals, feedback), contact the PM team at AskHR@virginia.edu.