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Goal setting resources

Last updated on August 26, 2025

Goal setting is a process of working towards what we want to do or who we want to be. Employees and supervisors should collaborate and communicate openly on: 

  • What the goals should be 
  • How they can be achieved 

Goals help us: 

  • Focus our energy and resources 
  • Increase our performance and our organization’s performance 
  • Feel more engaged and invested in our roles 
  • Have a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction 

On this page

Types of goals

You can create any of the following types of goals: 

  • Work goals: Foundational or required for your current position (in current role) 
  • Learning goals: Formal (for example, courses or programs) and informal (for example, networking or mentoring) activities relevant to your current role or personal development 
  • Career development goals: Goals that are not required for your current role but are desirable to help you improve and grow. They tend to be medium- or long-term 
  • Private goals: Goals that are not shared with your supervisor unless you change the goal type 

What should a good goal statement include?

A good goal statement should include what you will do, why it is important, how you will achieve it and how you will measure success:

  • What: Your what should be a clear, concise opening statement of what you plan to achieve. Anyone who reads this should understand what the goal is. For example, my goal is to deliver informative performance development sessions to ministry audiences
  • Why: Your why should explain why this goal is important to you and your organization. What value comes from achieving this goal? For example, this goal will improve the consistency and quality of employee experiences across the BC Public Service
  • How: Your how should describe a plan or the few high-level steps you will take to achieve your goal. Be sure your goal remains challenging but attainable. For example, I will do this by collaborating with ministry colleagues to develop presentations. The presentations will respond to the needs of employees in each part of the performance development process
  • Measure: Your measure should outline how you and your supervisor will objectively determine if you have completed your goal and whether you have done it well. This can be either a qualitative or quantitative measure of success for your goal. For example, deliver at least two sessions per month that reach at least 100 people

Tips on how to get started

  • Reflect on suggested discussion questions from the Goal setting template and conversation resources. These may influence your goal statements. Set up a meeting with your supervisor to discuss what your goals should include
  • Review your goals after reviewing, What should a good goal statement include? What can you do to make your goals more effective? 
  • Review your goals with your supervisor. Are you focusing on the right things? Is anything missing? Are there any subjective or vague words that you need to further define or clarify? 
  • How will you define success? Share your perspective with your supervisor of what success looks like. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what your supervisor’s expectations are

Create a goal

You can create a goal in one of two ways: 

How to use the MS Word version of the Create a goal template

  • Review the goal setting resources on this page
  • Collaborate with your supervisor to create a goal using the MS Word Create a goal template
  • Find one or more goal tags to add (Goal tag definitions are also available in the Goal setting Resources section of the PDP under Goal tags)
  • Use comments to capture updates and feedback on goal progress

Optional: to add the goal and any comments to the employee’s Performance Development profile and employment record, either: 

  • Email the Create a goal template to performance.development@gov.bc.ca
  • Submit the Create a goal template via an AskMyHR (IDIR restricted) service request. Use the categories Myself > HR Software Systems Support > Performance Development Platform