Achieving alignment with business goals is not only a matter of strategy but also deeply rooted in an organization's cultural fabric. A solid organizational culture promoting shared values, clear communication, and collective effort is essential for alignment. When employees are engaged and understand the broader mission and vision, they are more likely to work cohesively towards common goals.

Building a culture that supports alignment involves fostering transparency, encouraging collaboration, and embedding a sense of purpose within the workforce. It is crucial to align global and local interests, manage workload to prevent employee burnout, and ensure they understand and connect with the broader mission. By exploring how organizations have addressed these complexities, we can gain valuable insights into the cultural elements necessary for aligning with business goals, whether within the HR function or across the organization.

Perspectives from Thought Leaders on How to Align with Business Goals

To explore the critical cultural elements needed to drive alignment with business goals, we have gathered insights from thought leaders who have effectively cultivated such environments within their organizations. Their experiences and reflections shed light on the cultural foundations that support alignment, collaboration, and a shared commitment to organizational success.

Diane Erdman
Founder & Executive Coach at Ignite FBL

Establishing ongoing, frequent, authentic communication is essential to effectively aligning business goals. This begins within the leadership team and extends throughout the organization, cascading seamlessly through departmental leaders. Ensuring that the right individuals occupy key roles, starting with leadership positions, is fundamental. These leaders must also be committed to supporting their teams through open communication and talent development, ensuring alignment with the organization's goals.

Maintaining realistic and simplified business goals is essential to sustaining focus. Leaders should prioritize having the appropriate personnel in key roles, enabling them to entrust subordinates to cascade and align goals effectively. A critical aspect of this process is ensuring that business goals resonate with the organization's core values, as this alignment shapes the organizational culture.

Businesses with a robust, positive, and intentional culture, anchored in clear values and actively embodied in daily operations, experience a multitude of benefits. These include a highly engaged workforce, impressive retention rates, and a capacity to navigate change smoothly, provided the changes align with the organization's core values and are communicated proactively.

Navigating and adapting to change effectively also hinges on maintaining this open communication amidst dynamic conditions. It is crucial to proactively engage employees in the change process, seeking their input on solutions and consistently demonstrating genuine appreciation for their contributions. By fostering this two-way communication, a team of engaged informal leaders can emerge, helping to mitigate the turbulence of change by preventing the spread of gossip, fear, and anxiety and replacing it with a strong and engaged culture.

Leaders seeking to set and achieve goals while cultivating an engaged workforce must embody humility, authenticity, and a willingness to delegate. These qualities foster an environment of trust, allowing leaders to empower their teams and collectively strive toward achieving shared objectives.

Dr. Steven Kofford PhD
Assistant Professor of Management at Mississippi State University

It goes without saying that HR’s alignment with business goals is critical for success. However, it is less clear how that alignment can actually be achieved. A good starting point is trying to break down the barriers between HR and the business. One such barrier I’ve encountered in my career is a lack of understanding of and attention to broader business priorities by HR teams. HR leaders sometimes complain about not having a “seat at the table” in strategic decision-making, but until HR leaders can clearly link their value in light of business goals, business leaders may be reluctant to welcome them to the table on equal footing.  Another barrier is the “HR speak” that can dominate HR teams’ communication. Terms and phrases like “workforce optimization,” “reduction-in-force,” and “quiet quitting” are not always universally understood and may be disconnected from key business priorities like revenue generation, profitability, and return on investment.

While breaking down barriers is a good start, in my experience, the key element in aligning HR teams with the business is a focus on outcomes rather than process. An outcome focus tends to broaden a team’s perspective and link a team’s efforts to the ultimate business goals. Conversely, a process focus tends to narrow a team’s perspective and de-link the team’s efforts and the ultimate business goals. Of course, the process is important, but focusing on outcomes first helps a team “begin with the end in mind” and adjust processes to ensure they match the needs of the business. It should be part of HR’s guiding principles and culture. When that occurs, HR teams stop viewing their services as “ends” in and of themselves but rather as important “means to end” in helping achieve business success. An outcome focus can be enhanced through the use of outcome-based metrics emphasizing efficiency and return on investment rather than only the effectiveness of HR programs and policies.

Other Articles in the Series on How to Align with Business Goals

Understanding the critical cultural elements is just one aspect of this alignment. Equally important are the lessons learned in aligning with business goals and impactful advice for leaders and managers to guide their teams through these changes successfully. Together, these perspectives can give organizations and professionals a comprehensive view of achieving and maintaining alignment with business goals.

Enabling Practices and Resources

Emerging HR Strategy Practices for Engaging Employees and External Partners Now and Into the Future.

At its most sophisticated level, HR Strategy defines a future centered around optimizing how employees and their needs are managed and how critical external resources and relationships can best be leveraged to effectively drive productivity, retention, and business results.

Creating an Employee Experience that Bonds High Performers to the Organization.

The employee experience constitutes the entire journey an employee takes with the organization. This includes everything from pre-hire to post-exit interactions and everything in between.

Partnering with External Stakeholders to Build Internal Success Stories.

As a company does not exist in a vacuum, it should not only recognize but actively participate in the larger communities to which it belongs or is involved.