Welcome, @awoodrow,
It’s true that there may be multiple, viable ways to set things up; that’s ok. Pick the one that fits best according to the suggestions below and to best integrate with other existing goals and work you already have.
Goals (your org’s mission and your org- and team-wide goals and their measures) and work (portfolios, projects, tasks) are two different things. Goals are the intent/purpose, and work are the concrete steps to get there. That should provide an overall distinction.
Why do you feel you know a closer tie between goals and projects than what’s offered? I don’t commonly find myself having to make this navigation; I’m either creating/tracking my goals, or doing the work, not intensively navigating between the two.
Re your people initiatives/hiring example, your goals and sub-goals seem reasonable to me, but you could simplify by having only top-level goals and for each, having one or more sub-goals that are your measures (e.g., OKRs or KPIs). I usually have each “leaf” (sub-goal in this case, but could be a sub-sub-goal in a two-level goal example) be the measure. Re your portfolio and project alternatives, any could work. To decide, focus less on the goals relationship and more on how you carry out the work. Is a small group charged with carrying out the main hiring steps and doing so all at once for multiple positions? They’d want that in a single project, likely. Are these discrete efforts and very involved, maybe a project for each and track work across them more easily in a portfolio. In either case, you’ll be able to see monthly/quarterly/etc. how you’re progressing on the goals regardless.
Please consider my quick-read on goals when Asana first released it here:
And if you haven’t already studied it, I recommend this eBook for the mission/goals part of the equation:
Hope that helps,
Larry