gu id e to H ow
How to:
Set individual performance objectives
What’s the problem? Creating poor objectives and setting them up poorly with employees will lead to misdirected efforts, weak accountability and slows the forward momentum of your business. When people work to good objectives, they’re more likely to achieve excellent results. There’s an opportunity here for HR professionals to support the writing and acceptance of good objectives. This is the starting point for achieving a highperformance culture.
Employees draft their objectives for agreement with their manager The measure of performance is agreed. Ideally, the individual can use this information to make any necessary changes to achieve the desired result Identify the resources available to help meet the objectives Individual understands what happens as a result of different levels of performance Outline and agree personal development plan
How do you solve it? 1
Agree what high performance against these objectives would look like Employee commits to delivering the objective.
Help individuals to take accountability Individuals are far more likely to do something when they make the decision to do so, rather than if their manager wants or tells them to. There are several routes to achieving this, which can be used together:
inspire brilliance How to: Set individual performance objectives
Call us on: +44 (0)1932 222700 or visit: etsplc.com
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Define a good performance objective
Review the quality of objectives
Your employees may need support to understand that, for an objective to be effective, it needs to be successful across several dimensions:
Ensuring that people are using good objectives requires review and support. We advise the following steps:
If achieved, it must self-evidently advance the aims of the team and the business It should be so clearly written as to be understandable without further information
Conduct a business-level review of a sample of objectives to ensure they’re high quality. Identify interventions needed to bring about any required improvement Encourage peer review and calibration of objectives by managers before signing them off to ensure they’re equally stretching and meet the definition of a ‘good objective’.
It must be measurable either objectively (e.g. sales, time spent) or subjectively (client opinion, benchmark against similar activities)
What next?
One person should feel personally responsible for the delivery of each objective.
This guide deals with setting performance objectives but the same principles apply to setting developmental objectives. On a related note, we increasingly advise clients to give more consideration to how people are achieving their results.
Case study The objective-setting screen on one system we created features five separate boxes to encourage employees to describe, in writing, how each of their objectives is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timebound (SMART).
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Would you like more help with this? If you want to talk – either about this specific issue or a broader performance or talent challenge – please contact us. Call us on +44 (0)1932 222700 Or e-mail us at
[email protected] www.etsplc.com
inspire brilliance How to: Set individual performance objectives
Call us on: +44 (0)1932 222700 or visit: etsplc.com
