Performance Review - Setting Smart Objectives 

A useful way of ensuring that you set effective objectives is to check that they are SMART.

Specific	Is the objective clear and unambiguous?
Measurable	Does it identify clear success criteria i.e. how will you know when it has been achieved?
Achievable	Is it achievable as well as being challenging?
Realistic	Is it realistic to expect the individual to achieve this? Is the objective right for the business and the individual or team concerned?
Time-related	Is there a deadline and specific review dates?

Let’s assume that it is one of the company’s objectives for the current financial year to reduce absenteeism and that this objective has passed the SMART test. However it isn’t realistic to hold one individual manager accountable for the reduction in absenteeism so it is necessary to break this objective down into a number of smaller objectives that will enable us to achieve the overall aim by the end of the year.

These objectives could be:

1. To investigate and produce a report identifying the causes of absenteeism by the end of Period 2.

2. To identify and recommend a workable process for monitoring and reducing absenteeism by the end of Period 3.

3. To plan the communication and implementation of the process for monitoring and reducing absenteeism by the end of
Period 4.

4. To oversee the communication and implementation of the process to ensure that all personnel are able to use it and that it is in place by the end of Period 6.

5. To monitor the effectiveness of the process weekly and produce Period reports.

As you can see, some of the measures are qualitative, that is, they are more concerned with the way in which something is done and the quality of the end result rather than with a specific amount or value.

For example the measure of objective 2 will be how ‘workable’ the process proves to be. It may therefore be necessary to agree these measures in advance and identify the criteria that would make it a ‘workable’ process. These could be that the process is easy to understand and use, requires the minimum amount of time and paperwork, and is accepted by all interested parties.

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