Individual Reflection - Smarter Goals

SMARTER GOALS

Module 3 presents and identifies various factors that are important to people’s learning and performance in organizations. The elements of individual motivation, self-efficacy, and goal setting are introduced. I feel that the topic of SMARTER goal setting is very informative and interesting.

I think that it is critical to set up goals to manage and motivate employee’s job. The elements of SMARTER goals are S - specific, M - measurable, A - achievable, R - relevant, T - time-frames, E - engaging and R- reviewed. The topic of SMARTER goal setting lets me recall my past experience in Q Company, where the periodic Employee Appraisal process is required like many other Corporations. One of the key elements during the appraisal process is the goal setting components align with the organizational objectives. I’ve set up lots of goals and objectives - some of them meet the criteria of SMARTER, but some of them do not. I remember that after several appraisal processes, it became a practice for the senior staff (like me) to set up very general goals or even repeat the goals from previous appraisal process. Some examples are listed as below:

Improve my communication skills

Provide training sessions to employees on Employee Travel Policy

Become a subject matter expert for Financial system and improve variance analysis

After reading SMARTER goals setting elements in this Module, I also did some research from Internet to get further information and read a variety of discussions on effective goals setting. Then I started to review the goals I’ve set up in my previous company and think about how to set them in an effective way. I realize that some goals I set up before either do not clearly define what I am going to do, or are not measurable, or are not linked to a timeframe. If I could do the performance review again differently, I would set up my goals following the SMARTER framework. The general goals mentioned above can be revised as below, which are more specific, measurable, achievable and within the required time-frame.

Improve my communication and presentation skills by participating Monthly Management Review Meeting from June 2010 and presenting Variance Commentary and Financial Performance to Senior Management.

Finalize the training documents on Employee Expense Report by March 2009 and provide monthly training sessions since then to new employees (also to existing employees as the refresher training) to enhance the employee awareness of the company’s Travel Policy and improve the accuracy and timeliness submission of Employee Expense Report.

Design and implement a new Excel Template to retrieve the data from Cognos TM1 reporting system directly by June 30, 2012. The new template will