Analyzing Goal Setting on Employee Motivation
Assignment 5
Business Communication
Johns Hopkins University

Zhe Xu
September 28, 2013

Executive Summary
As an intern at Citibank for one month, I found that employees at Citibank do not focus on their work during their work time. In order to correct this low morale at Citibank, I proposed to use goal setting to improve employees’ behaviors. This research explores whether goal setting has a positive effect on employee motivation by borrowing models from predecessors’ research and social cognitive theory.
An email-delivered descriptive survey addressed ten questions on how employees feel and whether they are motivated after they are assigned goals. My findings suggest that Citibank employees are highly motivated by goal setting. This study concludes that setting a high level and specific goal for Citibank employees is an effective way to motivate them.
My recommendation for Citibank is to set exact goals and deadlines for each employee and develop a system of rewards and penalties. The employees who complete their goals efficiently and perfectly will earn a financial bonus and those who finish the goals after the deadline will receive a deduction of their salaries according to their performance.

Background During the period when I was an intern at Citibank, I found that employees there were inefficient in their work. They were not punctual to work. Some came to work late, and some left work early. In addition, employees were often seen doing other things during their work time, such as playing phone games, texting, and reading books that were not related to their work. Employees had a very low morale under that atmosphere, and very few of them could get their work done on time, resulting in missed deadlines. The inefficient work culture at Citibank was severely affected our company’s operations. Many of