Chapter 3: Engaging Your Team
For this lesson, we'll assume both you and your team members have copies of their goals for the current performance period. Review every goal for each subordinate and assess that a) they are completely aligned with your own goals, and b) they meet the criteria for SMART.
You previously aligned your goals to your boss's; now, you'll connect the team's goals with your own. For example, you have a goal to complete a project in 3 months, but the tasks are actually executed by your team. One or more of your subordinates must have a goal defining their contribution towards the project, bound by the amount of time needed for you to meet your goal. Be prepared for some effort! Maybe you took the role before the team's goals were established. Perhaps your superior changed expectations for your department. Or possibly the previous manager did a poor job of goal setting. The bottom line, circumstances may have interfered with the team's goals being correctly aligned, and you must fix this.
As you did for your own goals, adjust those of your team to meet SMART criteria, repeated here for convenience.
SMART Goals
Specific: The goal must be precise regarding expectations; the outcome is not vague.
Measurable: The goal must state how success will be judged and by whom. The metrics used must be clear, and milestones should be defined for protracted goals.
Attainable: You have the skills, staff, tools, and time required to succeed.
Relevant: The goal makes sense for you and is aligned with organizational objectives.
Time-bound: The goal has a documented start and end.
When applying these criteria to your team's goals, keep in mind the risk involved when objectives aren't clear; a difference of opinion on goal attainment can permanently damage your relationship. Example: an employee is an engineer and has these existing goals.
Goal 1. Provide support for server upgrades as requested by your manager.
Goal 2. Attain 8 or better on the annual customer satisfaction survey.
Goal 3. Maintain less than 2 defects per year.
Goal 1. Isn't a SMART goal; it's completely open-ended and non-specific, time-frame and measurement are non-existent. This may be part of a job description, but it's not a goal. If there are specific systems to upgrade during the review period, spell them out. Include the time frame required, and how success will be measured (maybe based on down-time, or lack of defects, or customer feedback).
Goal 2. It's measurable and time-bound. But does the employee actually have the ability to impact customer satisfaction surveys? Is this a team or even company measurement, rather than the individual? The goal should be more specific regarding how the survey relates to the employee, and if the employee isn't directly rated by customers, it may not even be attainable.
Goal 3. It's measurable and time-bound, but certainly not specific. Defects for what, in what context? Without defining a defect, you can't be sure it's even attainable.
All three goals have a glaring absence regarding specificity: what happens with success or failure. This is a common problem and easily fixed; every goal must specify what will happen if the goal is attained. Here's an example of Goal 3 rewritten using SMART:
Goal 3. Defects.
A percentage of goal attainment will be assessed based on the number of defects resulting from your work. A defect is defined as a customer-impacting incident where the root cause is determined to be your failure to follow documented procedures or your negligence. Defect rates are based on baselines defined in your job description. Goal attainment is based on the total number of defects measured over the annual review period.
• Zero (0) defects results in 110% of the goal being met.
• One (1) defect results in 100% of the goal being met.
• Two (2) defects results in 80% of the goal being met.
• Three (3) defects results in 50% of the goal being met.
• Four (4) or more defects results in 0% of the goal being met
See the difference? Goal 3 is now Specific, the expectation is to maintain defect-free work, and the results are defined for attainment and failure. The mechanism of Measurement is clear; a root cause will uncover responsibility for defects. Attainability & Relevance are implied via the employee's job description: the employee is an engineer, and their work should be as free of errors as possible. Again, if there are reasons that errors occur outside of the employees control, that will be established via the root cause, the goal is only not attained when the employee is negligent, not unlucky. Finally, the goal is Time-bound, the measurement is taken over the review period of one year.
Note the attempt to motivate higher performance by rewarding zero defects with additional percentage points. This could lead to a higher total performance score and the commensurate reward. Consider this technique when modifying and developing goals for your team, but make sure it's acceptable to your superiors as well.
Operational goals, such as project completion or piece-work fulfillment, will be the most obvious. But also consider things like customer surveys, compliance with policies, and contractual attainment when developing performance goals. And in addition to performance objectives, you should provide goals for growth and learning.
Lastly, you need to align your team's objectives with their job descriptions (JD). Start by reviewing job titles to ensure that each has a corresponding JD. Job titles typically represent a position and a level of experience. Examples: Machinist Apprentice, Machinist, and Senior Machinist. Or Programmer I, Programmer II, and Programmer Analyst. There must be a JD for each separate title; if you find a team member with a title and no corresponding JD, you need to create one or change their title.
JD's generally have two sections, qualifications and responsibilities. Qualifications define the levels of experience required for someone holding the title; this includes the education, skills, and physical or personal attributes needed for the role.
Examples:
Bachelors Degree in Accounting Desired
5+ Years of Application Design and Implementation
Able to Lift 25lbs Unassisted
Desire to Work In a Fast-Paced Environment
Some qualifications should change from level to level. For example, a Programmer I may specify 1+ years of experience, a Programmer II requires 3+ years, and a Programmer Analyst 5+ years. Also, note the importance of required vs. desired qualities. If you say a qualification is required, then this quality is necessary to hold the title; bending the rules here can lead to misunderstanding of requirements amongst team members, a sure fire way to poor employee engagement. To maintain greater flexibility, use the term Desired when identifying skills and experiences whenever possible.
The responsibilities section must clearly describe the day-to-day expectations of the position. Outline the tasks expected of the job and include the percentage of time they'll spend on each. Example:
70-80% General bookkeeping, recording, and reconciling accounting data.
10-15% Prepare payroll data and support the payroll department each cycle.
5% Support the preparation of financial statements.
5% Perform administrative, filing, and reporting tasks as required.
Those tasks are a bit simplistic, but they should suffice to get the point across. Your job is to ensure the JD accurately reflects what the employee is expected to work on. Getting this right is essential for many reasons: to promote or remove an employee, to evaluate performance, to identify qualified new hires, and to ensure employees know what's expected of them. As mentioned, this is a big component of feeling engaged.
Unfortunately, you'll likely find discrepancies between the current team and their JD's, and fixing this is easier said than done. Why? Employees have copies of their JDs, and most changes will impact them, so you can't do it in a vacuum. For example, if you discover an employee is grossly overqualified, you can't just change the JD; you may need to change their title. This likely has an impact on compensation, and it's probably not a decision you can make unilaterally. The bottom line, you'll need to work with your management or HR to resolve conflicts with JD's and the current staff. But it's something that must be done.