#67 Measurable Goals For Performance Measurement

In a recent email to me, mezhermnt subscriber Corina from Hong Kong asks:

"This will be the first year my company uses the SMART approach to do performance management. As a manager, I am supposed to set up measurable objectives for my subordinates. It's not a problem for me to set up measurable objectives for my assistant managers as they have deadlines to meet. But when it comes to my secretary and the clerical staff, I am not sure how to set measurable goals for them as their duties are very routine and tedious. Could you give me some examples?"

Are deadlines the only thing worth measuring?

Corina mentions that setting up measurable goals for her assistant managers is relatively easy because they have deadlines to meet. Does this mean that the only results worth measuring for the assistant managers is whether they complete things by their deadlines?

What about completing the right things, instead of wasting time and effort and money on doing things that really don't need to be done at all?

And what about completing things well, instead of rushing to get it done on time but producing an end result that falls below the standards required?

Spend the time to think about results, before thinking about goals and measures.
So this is the first key to setting measurable goals for performance management: first spend some time to define the most important results that the person, in their role, is responsible for achieving. And check that you've got the right balance among those results using a checklist something like this one:

* timeliness (finishing the work on time, or with as short as feasible cycle time or total effort)
* quality (the goodness of the output produced, perhaps in terms of customer expectations or standards)
* quantity (the total amount of work performed, or output produced)
* cost (the total amount spent to perform the tasks)
* efficiency or productivity (the best use of time and resources)

So what are some examples of measurable goals for a secretary or personal assistant?
First we need to talk about the results that are important for a secretary or personal assistant to achieve, rather than get hung up on the duties they perform. For example, rather than focusing on the duties of "send agendas for meetings" and "schedule appointments", one key result might be "their boss is always able to focus on the priorities and not distracted by administrative tasks".

Next, what could be some goals for a secretary to strive for over the coming year? One goal, in line with the above result, could be to "Reduce the proportion of administrative items that go into the boss's in tray or diary."

And lastly, how could you measure this goal? One way could be to add the total hours the boss spends on administrative tasks (or tasks that are not in their list of priorities) and divide it by the total time the boss works, to give a proportion of time spent in administrative tasks. Clearly the goal is to reduce this amount.

See how this thought process gets you monitoring important results, instead of just measuring activity, like how many agendas were produced or how many appointments were scheduled?

So next time you're setting goals and measures for your staff, make sure the conversation starts with a clear statement of the results they are responsible for producing, as opposed to the tasks they perform. Measure the results, not the tasks.