So, how can you help your workforce write effective goals in 2025?
It’s one of the toughest challenges employees—and their managers—face this time of year. They need to move from end-of-year performance cycles to thinking about the development and career conversations that will make the most of the year ahead. This year, workers can get some help with these role- and career-essential tasks by using artificial intelligence—including AI agents and generative AI—for tips to formulate effective goals.
For example, AI can help someone like Jen, a customer success specialist. Jen is great at her job and receives high praise from her manager and coworkers, but she struggles to look ahead and set actionable goals that help the business and advance her career. Now, before submitting goals as the next step of her performance review, she can ask a performance and goals AI agent, part of Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM), for ideas. Jen can ask the AI agent questions such as:
With her questions answered, she’s ready to document her goals for the coming year. Oracle’s generative AI can help by recommending goals based on information she provides, such as her skills, interests, and career aspirations. Oracle AI will also help Jen in defining the details of her goals, including success criteria. Oracle’s performance and goals AI agent helps employees like Jen develop more effective goals and make the most of their performance reviews and feedback.
Managers can also use the performance and goals AI agent to get coaching on how to conduct more meaningful performance and goal discussions with their employees by reviewing best practices shared by the AI agent. Jen’s manager can ask the performance and goals AI agent questions such as:
Equipped with the right guidelines that are based on an organization’s specific policies, the performance and goals AI agent can help coach leaders like Jen’s manager to encourage their employees’ career growth, complete more equitable and actionable evaluations, and gain better outcomes for their business.
Oracle’s AI agent for HCM can help improve a performance and goals process that is struggling at many organizations. Only 2% of chief human resources officers from Fortune 500 companies strongly agree that their performance management system inspires employees to improve, a 2024 Gallup survey found. Employees too often don’t know what is expected of them, and infrequent communication between managers and team members weakens an organization’s ability to thrive and to inspire individuals to grow within the organization. Only 56% of employees formally review their performance goals with their manager once a year or less, Gallup found. The process hinges on setting effective goals from the start.
Learn more about Oracle AI for Human Capital Management.
Oracle’s performance and goals AI agent helps HR, managers, and employees understand and apply their company’s unique policies and guidelines for goal setting and performance evaluation processes. Using the AI agent can help them get more out of performance reviews by providing clear guidance and creating a strong foundation for more impactful performance and goal conversations and coaching.
Using Oracle’s embedded generative AI, employees can quickly create more relevant, clear, and measurable goals and get goal suggestions based on their last performance evaluation. Managers can get assistance on how to better coach and encourage employees with thoughtful commentary about goals and performance. For example, Oracle’s generative AI might suggest development tips for certain skills an employee wants to work on. With well-defined goals, expectations, and measurable result targets that are frequently discussed, employees and managers are better positioned to perform, develop, and grow within the organization.
The performance and goals AI agent is available now.
If you’re an existing Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM customer, getting started is easy: Contact your Oracle representative to learn everything you need to transform your performance and goals process. Join our AI Agents Early Adopter Program to collaborate directly with Oracle’s product management team and take advantage of educational webinars.
Learn how AI agents built into Oracle Cloud HCM help employees achieve new levels of productivity and growth.
Explore how HR can lead in an AI- and skills-enabled transformation.