Establishing Smart Goals Ensures Clarity

In Sharing Best Practices
August 7, 2013
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Performance
goal setting is an important activity that is closely related to quality
improvement. The process of setting goals can serve as a road map to your
success. Goals set for departments, teams, or individuals should be linked to
the organization’s mission, purpose, and strategic plans.

One
process for helping you set clear, achievable goals is S.M.A.R.T., which stands
for specific, measurable, attainable, results-orientated and time bound.
Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals can help keep you motivated and provide a way to
measure your progress during your journey.

To
be meaningful, goals must be SMART.

S
Specific

M
Measurable

A
Attainable

R
Results-Oriented

T
Time-Oriented

Goals
can be broken down into sub-goals or objectives. Attainment of individual
objectives will lead to accomplishment of the overall goal. Specific goals
state exactly what the organization intends to accomplish.

The
following is an example of a non-specific goal:

Non-Specific:
We will improve customer service.

This
could be better written as:

Specific:
We will increase our customer service scores by 5% over the next 12 months by
increasing training for front-line staff and monitoring performance via
customer satisfaction surveys.

Each
specific goal must be evaluated to determine if it is measurable. The above
example is a measurable goal since the organization can track it. The following
is a non-measurable goal:

Non-Measurable:
We should talk to the employees about reducing expenses.

It
could be better written as:

Measurable:
We will reduce expenses by 10% by January 1^st.

Goals
must be attainable and realistic. Employees will lose their motivation in
attempting to attain goals that are set too high. On the other hand, goals set
too low will not provide a challenge. The following is an example of a
non-attainable goal:

Non-Attainable:
We will improve our Employee Satisfaction Survey to 100% for all questions.

A
related and attainable goal would be:

Attainable:
We will increase our Employee Satisfaction Survey scores to 5% above the
present organization average.

Goals
that are result-oriented will create standards of performance for each job that
impact the overall business objective. An example of a non-result oriented goal
would be:

Non-Results
Oriented: We will improve our leadership ability.

A
results-oriented goal would be:

Results
Oriented: We will conduct leadership training two hours per month until we
raise our Employee Satisfaction Survey scores above the existing organization
average.

In
addition, goals must be time-oriented to keep employees focused and avoid
procrastination. An ineffective time-oriented goal would be:

Not-Time
Oriented: We will try to conduct safety training in the fall.

A
better goal would be:

Time-Oriented:
We will complete safety training of all employees by November 1^{st .}

T
can also stand for Tangible – A goal is tangible when you can experience it
with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing.

When
your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and
measurable and thus attainable.

Remember
the S.M.A.R.T. acronym when establishing goals and objectives. This formula for
goal setting helps ensure that both supervisors and staff members share the
same understanding and clarity on goals set.

Progress
toward the goals should be monitored constantly. The responsibility of
achieving the goals belongs to both the supervisor and the employee. It’s a team effort. It’s a company wide
effort.