SMART goal setting – yes, these are important!

Goals are essential to keep your employees motivated and they will help increase their productivity all year round. People like something tangible to indicate they’re doing well and succeeding. Using the good old SMART framework ensures you’re setting appropriate and beneficial goals for your employees and your company.  

Without any sort of reward or recognition people lose enthusiasm for goal setting. Goals and rewards need to match the size of the goal and the efforts involved, the achievement could result in different types of rewards. Smaller goals could be as simple as recognition and praise for their efforts, something that can often be overlooked. Completion of medium goals could result in an afternoon off, new office chair or phone upgrade. Bigger goals could result in a bonus, pay increase or gift voucher.

So, be SMART and remember..

Specific:

A well-defined goal to know exactly what is expected, when it is expected, and how much is expected.

Measurable:

Provide milestones to track progress and motivate employees toward achievement.

Attainable:

Goals need to be achievable, avoid setting the standards too high or too low have a good discussion and you can agree on the middle ground.

Relevant:

You should focus your goals towards the greatest impact on the overall strategy of the company and the employees’ position.

Time-bound:

Establish enough time to achieve the goal, quarterly works well. If it is a bigger goal, create a timeline with tasks/milestones to be completed that lead to the achievement of the goal.

 Melissa | People Guru