The Role of Goal Setting in Workforce Development

Workplace development brings change. New policies may be developed, workplace systems transformed, and tasks, roles and responsibilities adapted and revised. For the individual employee a new set of behaviours may be required, or established patterns of behaviour may be adapted and transformed. Within the psychological literature, goal setting theory represents one of the most well developed and empirically supported approaches to behaviour change. The key to its success is the treatment of behaviour as a function of factors relating to the individual (ability, skills and attitudes) and the environment (workplace systems of performance feedback and rewards). This paper will explore examples of successful implementations of goal setting programs in the workplace, with a particular focus on the potential applications of this approach for workforce development in the alcohol and other drugs (AOD) field.