How to Get Employees to Write SMART, Clear Objectives to Improve Performance

When attempt­ing to max­imise pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, improve per­for­mance and deliv­er busi­ness val­ue, the place to start is get­ting your employ­ees to set clear SMART objec­tives. Objec­tives serve as a way to keep employ­ees on course and work­ing toward an over­ar­ch­ing com­pa­ny goal. They pro­vide focus, direc­tion, set expec­ta­tions and also pro­vide moti­va­tion for your work­force. Employ­ees can only achieve and exceed expec­ta­tions when they know exact­ly what is expect­ed of them. What’s more, when employ­ees are con­fi­dent of what is expect­ed of them, they won’t waste busi­ness time or ener­gy wor­ry­ing — allow­ing them to make most of their time and skills.

Despite this, accord­ing to a Gallup study on world­wide com­pa­nies, only half of employ­ees strong­ly agree that they know exact­ly what is expect­ed of them at work. This is where SMART objec­tives can step in.

By prop­er­ly util­is­ing SMART, clear objec­tives, employ­ees will feel bet­ter equipped to pri­ori­tise their work­load and deliv­er results. This will help to deliv­er busi­ness val­ue and improve per­for­mance over­all. It is worth not­ing that an impor­tant part of the process of cre­at­ing SMART objec­tives is the act of putting employ­ees in the driver’s seat. We are far more like­ly — and more dri­ven — to accom­plish goals we set our­selves. Mck­in­sey rec­om­mends involv­ing your employ­ees in the goal-set­ting process from start to fin­ish. This helps to secure employ­ee buy-in and moti­vates ongo­ing development.

Using the steps below, you can help your employ­ees to devel­op the skills and con­fi­dence required to write effec­tive per­son­al objec­tives. These easy-to-imple­ment tips will ensure you cre­ate SMART objec­tives that will improve per­for­mance in the long-term.

Con­verse­ly, Employ­ees Should Keep in Mind Their Limitations

Goals that are stretch­ing and chal­leng­ing are great but warn employ­ees of the dan­gers of set­ting goals that are com­plete­ly unre­al­is­tic giv­en the time and resources avail­able. If you have any employ­ees who have issues with per­fec­tion­ism, this is cer­tain­ly some­thing to be cau­tious of. Over time, your employ­ees will get a mea­sure of their own lim­its and their rate of progress, but in the mean­time, man­agers have to step in to ensure employ­ees aren’t over­tax­ing them­selves. This will only lead to objec­tives not being met, dis­ap­point­ment and frus­tra­tion for every­one involved.

Make Some Room and Allowances for Flexibility

As with any agile organ­i­sa­tion, organ­i­sa­tion­al needs and require­ments can change reg­u­lar­ly. What was press­ing three months ago might now seem unim­por­tant or unsup­port­ive of your organ­i­sa­tions objec­tives. If this is the case, employ­ees should feel empow­ered to make adap­ta­tions to their estab­lished objec­tives. How­ev­er, these changes should be mean­ing­ful and help­ful — these changes can be dis­cussed dur­ing your reg­u­lar one-to-ones. This is a great time for man­ag­er and employ­ee to exchange thoughts and feed­back on objectives.

Use per­for­mance Man­age­ment Soft­ware to Track SMART Objectives

Per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware makes the whole process of set­ting, agree­ing and track­ing SMART objec­tives easy for every­one involved. Once SMART objec­tives are draft­ed by the employ­ee, the man­ag­er can indi­cate whether or not the objec­tives are appro­pri­ate and dis­cuss rel­e­vant changes. This makes the set­ting of goals a tru­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive effort and gives par­ties a shared view of what has been agreed. Once objec­tives are for­malised, every­one involved can track progress on these objec­tives and give feed­back along the way, using the per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware. This way, every­body remains up-to-date with suc­cess­es and obsta­cles and man­agers can step in if employ­ees need extra support.

Decide on a SMART Definition

Before employ­ees can write their own SMART objec­tives, they need to be giv­en a SMART def­i­n­i­tion. Since George T. Doran coined the phrase in 1981, a num­ber of vari­a­tions have cropped up. At Clear Review, we rec­om­mend using the fol­low­ing SMART objec­tives def­i­n­i­tion:

S — Spe­cif­ic and Stretch­ing. The clear objec­tive needs to be as pre­cise as pos­si­ble. Avoid any ambi­gu­i­ties or con­fu­sion. For exam­ple, an employ­ee can’t (and shouldn’t) sim­ply be asked to ​”increase sales”. Rather, a more help­ful objec­tive would be to improve sales of a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct by a cer­tain per­cent­age in a giv­en time frame. Objec­tives should also be stretch­ing, or chal­leng­ing, so employ­ees are more moti­vat­ed to achieve their goals.

M — Mea­sur­able. A good SMART objec­tive should always set out what suc­cess will look like. Mea­sur­able goals give you some­thing to mea­sure your progress against. This will make it eas­i­er to deter­mine whether or not it has been achieved. The mea­sure can either be quan­ti­ta­tive or qualitative.

A — Achiev­able and Agreed. Though it is impor­tant for your employ­ees to chal­lenge them­selves, objec­tives should all be real­is­ti­cal­ly achiev­able. Unre­al­is­tic and seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble goals only serve to cre­ate a cul­ture of fail­ure in your com­pa­ny — this is far from the moti­va­tion­al envi­ron­ment you’re look­ing to cultivate.

Objec­tives should also be agreed between the employ­ee and their man­ag­er. This auton­o­my will help employ­ees to take real own­er­ship over their roles. The employ­ee needs to know they have had a say in their objec­tives and the man­ag­er needs to know that the objec­tives are suit­able and in line with com­pa­ny goals. Per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware can be used with great effect to ensure both par­ties are hap­py and agree to the objec­tives. This same soft­ware can also be used to set and track objectives.

R — Rel­e­vant. All per­for­mance objec­tives should be rel­e­vant to what the organ­i­sa­tion is try­ing to achieve and sup­port its over­all goals. With­out con­sid­er­ing rel­e­vance, even objec­tives that are achieved may have no impact on the per­for­mance of the organ­i­sa­tion, which flies in the face of what every effec­tive per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem aims to accomplish.

T — Time-Bound. Employ­ees and man­agers should agree on set tar­get dates for when objec­tives are to be com­plet­ed. This intro­duces a sense of urgency and it also allows man­agers to deter­mine whether or not an employ­ee is on track to accom­plish their per­son­al objec­tives. Encour­age employ­ees to set ​”near-term” objec­tives with a one-to-six month time frame, rather year-long objec­tives. Near-term objec­tives can be achieved more quick­ly and are there­fore more moti­vat­ing. They are also less like­ly to become irrel­e­vant as busi­ness needs change. Of course, short-term goals can also be used as ​“mini-mile­stones” to accom­plish big­ger goals.

Explain the Impor­tance of SMART Objec­tives to Your Employees

Whether you are cre­at­ing gen­er­al SMART objec­tives or per­son­al devel­op­ment objec­tives, your employ­ees need to know that your com­pa­ny takes objec­tive set­ting seri­ous­ly — and why goals matter.

Dur­ing one of your reg­u­lar per­for­mance coach­ing con­ver­sa­tions, explain how effec­tive goal set­ting can impact their per­for­mance; this will ulti­mate­ly affect their career pro­gres­sion and chances for advance­ment with­in your com­pa­ny. When explain­ing the SMART objec­tives con­cept, point to the fact that they have often been cit­ed by experts in the field as the most effec­tive way of set­ting goals.

You should also take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to illus­trate to employ­ees just how impor­tant they and their role are to your busi­ness. With­out them, you wouldn’t be able to accom­plish your organ­i­sa­tion­al objec­tives. This trans­paren­cy and authen­tic­i­ty will show your employ­ees that you val­ue them and that they are an inte­gral part of a ded­i­cat­ed team.

Be Trans­par­ent with Organ­i­sa­tion­al Objec­tives — and Encour­age Employ­ees to Align Their Goals Upward

Organ­i­sa­tion­al trans­paren­cy is an increas­ing con­cern in the busi­ness world. Employ­ees are demand­ing ever-greater degrees of open­ness and for­ward-think­ing com­pa­nies are deliv­er­ing. After all, trans­paren­cy is pos­i­tive­ly cor­re­lat­ed to lev­els of trust, employ­ee engage­ment and organ­i­sa­tion­al performance.

Dur­ing the goal-set­ting process, con­text is impor­tant. Dis­cuss over­ar­ch­ing com­pa­ny goals with your employ­ees. Explain to them any press­ing con­cerns or obsta­cles that are imped­ing progress. If you are clear and forth­right with regards to organ­i­sa­tion­al objec­tives, employ­ees will be able to keep them in mind when cre­at­ing their own objec­tives. They will also be able to align their objec­tives upwards, to sup­port long-term com­pa­ny goals.

Employ­ees Should Chal­lenge Themselves

We all get a sense of accom­plish­ment when we have com­plet­ed a task. This is why so many of us keep to-do lists and tick off activ­i­ties as they are achieved. It makes us feel organ­ised, pro­duc­tive and effi­cient. How­ev­er, stud­ies have shown this sense of accom­plish­ment is greater — and our per­for­mance is high­er — when we set our­selves par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing goals. ​“Easy wins” sim­ply aren’t as effec­tive as a moti­va­tor. If the goals in ques­tion appear more dif­fi­cult, we put more effort into com­plet­ing them to stan­dard and on time. Encour­age employ­ees to chal­lenge them­selves when cre­at­ing their SMART goals. This can be an excit­ing way to get them to test their lim­its and to reach greater heights.