Cascading objectives allow you to create and align company, group, and individual goals. Each individual goal rolls up into a group goal, which in turn feeds into a company goal. This results in a cascading structure that gives employees a clear and visual understanding of how their work impacts the bigger picture.
By providing employees with greater transparency and alignment in the objective-setting process, you can expect employees to feel more engaged and more motivated to perform to their fullest potential.
Objectives also act like a compass, directing resources and helping you identify weaknesses or opportunities along the way. They’ll give leaders valuable insights into the status of projects, opportunities for cross-functional collaboration, areas where efforts are being duplicated, and the priorities of other business units.
Video Walkthrough
Enable Cascading Objectives in a Cycle
To get started:
Toggle to your Admin view, navigate to your Objectives dashboard, and click Create New Cycle.
In the Compose Objectives Features section, check Enable Cascading Objectives.
Complete the rest of the cycle setup as usual.
Tip: As a first step, we recommend setting up a small test cycle in your account to get a feel for the basic workflow. Watch the walkthrough for instructions on how to test the feature without your employees being notified or having visibility into your test cycle.
Create Company Objectives
Company Objectives reflect the top priorities for the company as a whole.
From your Objectives dashboard, click Create Objective.
Assign the objective to a leader or admin who will drive the work.
Add a clear title, description, due date, and (optionally) a checklist of key results.
Select Company as the Type.
Create Group Objectives
Group Objectives roll up into Company Objectives and show how departments or cross-functional teams plan to contribute.
From your Objectives dashboard, click Create Objective.
Assign the objective to a leader or admin who will drive the work.
Add a clear title, description, due date, and (optionally) a checklist of key results.
Select Group as the Type.
Choose a meaningful group name, like "Sales" or "Product Team".
Select the most relevant Company Objective as its parent.
Note: Group names are fully customizable, so they do not necessarily need to correspond to a specific team or department. Group names are public-facing and appear in reports and exports.
Create Individual Objectives
Employees can now create relevant Individual Objectives aligned to their group and company goals.
From your Objectives dashboard, click Create Objective.
Add a clear title, description, due date, and (recommended) a checklist of key results.
Select Individual as the Type.
Select the most relevant Group or Company Objective as its parent.
Tip: Managers and HR Admins can create Individual Objectives on an employee's behalf by following the above steps and then changing the owner to the employee. With that being said, we encourage you to empower employees to enter their own objectives in order to inspire a greater sense of ownership.
Explore the Cascade View
Any employee can visit their Objectives dashboard and navigate to the Company tab to browse the Cascade View and see how Company Objectives are supported by Group and Individual Objectives across teams.
Note: The Cascade View will be empty until you've published at least one public Company Objective.
You can also see linked objectives directly on each objective's detail page. Any lower-level objectives that align to this one will be listed as its "children", and the higher-level objective to which this one aligns will be listed as the "parent" in the top left corner.
