Consulting Tips and Tools

Interest in SMART job objectives to guide staff performance is growing in both public and private sector organizations.  Over the past two years, Randy and I have provided training to more than 1,500 people who have moved into pay-for-performance systems.  This experience has convinced us that the organization’s Strategic Plan can be critical to the successful development, use, and impact of SMART job objectives in performance management.

Here are three points to consider if you are asked to assist the development of a SMART performance management system:

1.  SMART job objectives can be a great tool for communicating results that individuals are expected to produce, and for making sure that supervisor and staff member share common expectations about how these results are to be measured.  When individual objectives are clearly linked to the team or division mission, and when this mission is directly tied to achievement of the company’s strategic goals, people can see how their contribution enables success for the company.  This can be motivating for individual employees, and can provide a rational basis for rating and rewards.

2.  Clear and well-communicated strategic goals at the company level are the foundation for success with SMART job objectives.  Having these strategic goals enables leaders of divisions or work teams to define operational results expected from their group over a given time period.  Knowing these operational targets enables individual employees to  develop or understand their own job specific objectives.  If employees cannot link their job priorities to team mission and company goals, it’s tough to develop SMART objectives.  Therefore, it can be a good move to define measurable strategic goals and operational targets at the company and team levels BEFORE asking individuals to write their own objectives.  This can be done through facilitated planning meetings with leadership.

3.  The “M” in SMART stands for measurement, and the ability to measure achievement of objectives is key to the success of this performance management method.  If an objective is not measurable, there is no way to gauge progress or verify achievement.  Choosing meaningful performance indicators based on accessible data is essential.  This can require developing or modifying data collection and storage systems within the organization.

So… the first step in establishing an effective performance management system may be to clarify and communicate the company’s strategic goals and/or work unit operational targets for the coming year.  When Randy and I facilitate strategic planning meetings, we often include a component that explains results management in practical terms, so that planning teams can develop SMART targets.  When these SMART targets are in place, training for employees and supervisors on SMART job objectives is much more productive.

You can find more information on our training related to SMART Job Objectives by clicking here.

Susan

© Aligned for Results, LLC

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 10:34 am and is filed under Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.