Only 16% of companies effective at setting and communicating goals

Asana and research firm Censuswide have conducted a survey of over 6,000 knowledge workers from Australia, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US to uncover how distributed work resulting from the COVID-19 global pandemic has impacted organizations’ ability to effectively set, communicate and achieve company-wide goals.

Highlights from the survey findings include:

• Nearly half of all respondents (45%) say their company goals have changed at least once since working remotely.
• However, only 16% of workers believe that their company is effective at setting and communicating their organizational goals.
• As a result, only one-quarter (26%) of employees have a clear understanding of how their individual work relates to their company’s goals.

“We know organizations work best when everyone has clarity on their company’s mission, objectives, and who’s doing what by when. But this clarity can be hard to achieve under normal circumstances and is even more challenging now, as organizations experience many shifting dynamics and business priority resets in 2020,” said Alex Hood, Head of Product, Asana. “According to our survey findings, employees using a collaborative work management tool like Asana are nearly twice as likely to say that they have a clear understanding of how their individual work relates to their company wide goals.

“Today, we’re building on the clarity that work management platforms provide with the introduction of Asana Goals which are OKRs done right. Now companies have a single system to set their objectives and manage all the work needed to hit them. With the ability to see how the business is progressing towards the achievement of its goals in real-time, entire organizations will be better aligned, engaged and connected to their mission.”