How to Implement FAST Goals to Keep Your Employees Focused and Accountable

For fast-paced, knowledge-based organizations, FAST goals and focus areas offer strategic guidance to reimagine the goal-setting process. By choosing goals based on frequent communication, ambitious, specific and transparent metrics, you're setting up employees to grow and develop while contributing to your organization's main priorities.

FAST goals are growing in popularity as a framework to better map performance management to organizational values such as clarity and employee engagement. The term stands for frequently discussed, ambitious, specific and transparent goals.

A recent Gallup study revealed that just 47% of employees understand what's being asked of them at work. Changing that can improve performance. As HR professionals and business leaders look for innovative ways to drive greater engagement and productivity, the FAST model offers a unique approach.

What is the origin of FAST goals?

The term was introduced in 2018 in the MIT Sloan Management Review article, "With Goals, FAST beats SMART." According to the authors, the FAST goal-setting framework is designed specifically for fast-paced, knowledge-driven settings.

Their core hypothesis was simple: SMART goals focus on individual productivity and measurement. FAST goals take a different approach that prioritizes alignment, adaptability and continuous conversation. Over time, this concept and similar approaches have gained popularity in organizations where cross-functional teams or frequent pivots set the tone.

What are the essentials of FAST Goals?

FAST goals are designed to move beyond the annual review cycle and strict measurement-driven systems toward systems designed to challenge and engage workers while driving productivity. They also change as business objectives shift.

At ADP, a similar system called "focus areas" builds on the goals of frequent communication, bold goals and transparent processes. As ADP's Chief Talent Officer, Jay Caldwell explains, "We encourage people to evolve their goals as the work evolves. The world changes, and your goals should, too."

In terms of goal attributes, the FAST acronym stands for: frequent discussions, ambitious, specific and transparent. What those words mean in practice is detailed below.

Frequent discussions: Keeping goals relevant

Caldwell says that regular communication is one of the most important parts of effective goal setting. This can take the form of weekly check-ins, 1:1s with management and regular goal updates.

"We encourage weekly conversations about near-term priorities, enabled by technology — these priorities should then align to the longer-term focus areas," notes Caldwell.

Ambitious: Making goals matter

Goals should also prioritize objectives that are ambitious but strategic. "One of the most important things about goal setting is that the goals are challenging. That's what decades of academic research tell us makes goals work: being ambitious," says Caldwell.

"When goals are tied to evaluation, people start pulling back on ambition, and that defeats the purpose," Caldwell cautions.

It's important to strike a balance between audacious goals that are visionary and long-term, and those that push individuals to stretch while remaining achievable. Ultimately, bold goal setting relies on psychological safety: employees have to feel safe aiming high without fearing major downsides if they fail.

We encourage weekly conversations about near-term priorities, enabled by technology — these priorities should then align to the longer-term focus areas.

Jay Caldwell, Chief Talent Officer at ADP

Specific: Defining clear outcomes

FAST goals succeed by being specific enough to give the employee clear expectations and accountability while helping them grow.

When setting goals, "managers need to understand where someone is today, how they're performing and what a 10% improvement looks like from that baseline," says Caldwell.

Choosing goals specific to the organization's needs and an individual employee's growth trajectory can reduce confusion and provide a clear path to individualized coaching.

Transparent: Creating alignment without shame

Transparency in the goal-setting process has pros and cons. Visible goals help teams align and collaborate effectively; they can even spark healthy competition. However, public goals can also create pressure or even lead to employees disengaging.

Transparency works when it's built on trust. "Many goals, especially for knowledge workers, can be subjective. That's why it's so important to have psychological safety and trust in the manager-employee relationship," says Caldwell.

FAST vs. SMART: What's the difference?

Both SMART and FAST frameworks emphasize clarity, specificity and alignment, but there are differences between the two.

For example, SMART goals are often:

Part of an annual review
Part of performance evaluations
Drive compensation, career growth and other factors

In contrast, FAST goals are:

Frequently updated
Designed for coaching models
Decoupled from the measurement process

While annual measurement processes are required for some roles — for example, sales team goals or call center numbers — they're less of a fit for other parts of the organization.

"We uncoupled formal performance evaluations from goal-setting. We launched focus areas, which are very aligned with the FAST methodology — ambitious, specific, transparent, but not time-bound to a calendar or fiscal year," says Caldwell.

In practice, organizations can keep long-term measurement goals at the team or organizational level while focusing on FAST goals at the individual level.

Implementation tips for HR leaders

Getting started with the FAST approach often involves a mindset shift and some structural changes. Some ideas to get started include:

Define your purpose: "Start with the question: What is our business strategy? What are we trying to drive from a talent standpoint?" advises Caldwell. Decide what you're optimizing for before you roll out the new strategy.
Train managers: "Not everyone knows the science behind goal setting," Caldwell explains. Offer training to help managers coach employees through goal-setting conversations and understand the science driving goals.
Get regular feedback: Caldwell notes that pulse checks can help assess goal clarity and challenge. Ask: Do employees understand expectations? Do they feel stretched in the right way? "In coaching conversations, a leader might ask: How can I be even more clear about what I'm expecting of you in the next four weeks?" he says.
Focus on shorter timeframes: Try setting goals quarterly. "Shorter intervals are better. Probably not less than two to three months," Caldwell recommends. Focus on meaningful progress, not perfect timelines.

A fast-paced alternative worth considering

FAST goals give HR leaders a performance management framework that's designed for fast-paced roles and adapting to change. As many HR professionals look for new ways to approach performance discussions, this could be an area to consider.

Goals should motivate and empower people to grow and achieve their potential, and implementing them is a process — not just switching acronyms.

Caldwell suggests taking a strategic approach. "Trends don't matter if they're not the right fit. HR leaders need to look at their own organizational context and talent strategy. That should drive the design of your goal-setting process, not what other companies are doing."

For those who find FAST goals to be the right fit, this framework could transform the way employees perform and engage.

Learn how to separate measurement from acceleration

StandOut^® powered by ADP^®empowers team leaders to drive team performance by separating measurement from acceleration.