How HR Footprints Built a Strong PMS Foundation and Enabled Organization‑Wide Goal Alignment

In growing healthcare organizations, performance management often begins with a simple question: Are our people working on the right goals?

When business priorities evolve quickly, having a clear and well‑structured goal‑setting system becomes critical. Without it, performance discussions remain fragmented, expectations are unclear, and alignment with business strategy weakens.

At HR Footprints, we recently partnered with a reputed healthcare organization to support the design of their Performance Management System (PMS) and lead the execution of organization‑wide goal setting. The engagement focused on building a strong foundation for performance by creating a structured PMS framework and translating business objectives into meaningful, role‑based goals.

This case study shares how a focused PMS design and disciplined goal‑setting process helped the organization create clarity, accountability, and direction for performance.

The Business Challenge: Bringing Structure to Performance Planning

The organization was in a phase of rapid growth, with close to 80 employees across more than 20 unique roles and multiple business functions. While performance reviews were part of the culture, the leadership team faced challenges at the very first step of performance management, goal setting.

Some of the key concerns included:

  • No common PMS framework to guide performance planning
  • Different teams following different goal‑setting practices
  • Weak linkage between business objectives and individual KPIs
  • Limited clarity on performance expectations and ownership

Leadership wanted to create a structured, scalable Performance Management System and begin by strengthening the most important element — goal alignment.

HR Footprints was invited to partner with the organization to design the PMS framework and ensure that every employee started the year with clear, aligned, and well‑defined goals.

Our Engagement: PMS Design with a Strong Focus on Goal Setting

The scope of the engagement covered two critical areas:

  • Designing the Performance Management System framework
  • Leading the implementation of organization‑wide goal setting

Our objective was simple: build a practical PMS design and translate strategy into goals that people could clearly understand, own, and deliver.

Our Approach: Practical, Business‑Aligned and People‑Centric

1. Understanding Roles and the Business Structure

We began with detailed discussions with business leaders and HR to understand:

  • The organizational structure and hierarchy
  • Key functions and responsibilities
  • Close to 20 unique roles across teams

This role mapping exercise helped us design goals that were realistic, relevant, and aligned to actual role expectations.

2. Designing the Performance Management Framework

HR Footprints designed a structured PMS framework that defined:

  • The overall goal‑setting approach
  • Review and evaluation cycles
  • Performance categories and measurement logic
  • Guidelines for feedback and development conversations

The framework gave the organization a clear and consistent structure that could later be expanded into a full performance review system.

3. Creating Simple and Standardized Templates

To make execution easy and consistent, we developed:

  • Goal‑setting templates linked to organizational objectives
  • Mid‑year review formats for tracking progress
  • Final evaluation formats for future appraisal cycles

All templates were designed to be:

  • Easy to understand
  • Outcome‑focused
  • Relevant to each role

4. Translating Strategy into Functional and Individual Goals

One of the most critical parts of the engagement was connecting business strategy with individual performance.

We worked closely with leadership to:

  • Understand the organization’s annual business objectives
  • Convert these into functional goals and KPIs
  • Develop first‑cut individual goals for every identified role holder

This ensured that every employee could clearly see how their work contributed to larger business outcomes.

5. Enabling Managers and Employees Through Communication

To support smooth adoption, HR Footprints created:

  • A communication dossier explaining the PMS philosophy and process
  • User guides for managers and employees on writing effective goals
  • Clear instructions on KPIs, measurement criteria, and success indicators

This helped build confidence, clarity, and consistency across teams.

6. Goal Setting Orientation, Refinement and Sign‑Off

HR Footprints led the complete execution of the goal‑setting process through:

  • Orientation sessions for managers and employees
  • Walkthroughs of goal sheets and performance measures
  • Role‑wise refinements and modifications
  • Final goal reviews and formal sign‑offs

By the end of the process, every employee had clearly defined, aligned and approved goals for the performance year.

The Impact: A Strong Foundation for Performance Excellence

The engagement delivered strong and visible outcomes:

✔ Clear performance goals for 100% of employees
✔ Strong alignment between business objectives and individual KPIs
✔ A standardized PMS framework ready for future review cycles
✔ Improved role clarity, accountability and ownership
✔ A scalable foundation for performance and talent development

Most importantly, the organization now has a future‑ready PMS design and a disciplined goal‑setting process that supports growth, transparency and performance excellence.

Key Learning: Great Performance Starts with the Right Goals

This project reinforced a simple but powerful insight:

The success of any Performance Management System begins with the quality of its goal‑setting process.

When goals are aligned with strategy and clearly understood by people, organizations naturally build:

  • Focused and high‑performing teams
  • Strong accountability culture
  • Better manager–employee alignment
  • Sustainable business growth

About HR Footprints

At HR Footprints, we partner with organizations to design and implement:

  • Performance Management Systems (PMS)
  • Goal Setting & KPI Frameworks
  • Competency Frameworks
  • HR Architecture & OD Interventions
  • Strategic HR Partnering

We build practical, people‑centric HR systems that create real business impact.

Looking to Design or Strengthen Your PMS and Goal Setting Process?

If your organization is planning to design a new PMS or bring stronger alignment to your goal‑setting process, we would be happy to partner with you.

Connect with HR Footprints to build a performance culture that truly delivers results.

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