Intro- SMART Goal System

The following post is a proposal I gave to my current employer. For the sake of this blog, I changed the company name to “Pretzel Mania” and changed the names of the people in it.

Starting SMART Goals in Pretzel Mania

Pretzel Mania employees who are experienced and motivated collectively produce high volumes of product. Pretzel Mania makes a profit from their labor and in return, the employees receive personal satisfaction and a solid paycheck.

It took time to build this workforce. Each station is simple to learn, but it has taken years for each employee to become experienced and proficient. Improving by learning has been the key to achieving the level of production. Problems occur when employees stop learning or lose motivation to improve. The goal of this HR Plan is to help employees work with excellence, by maintaining high motivation and high pursuit of learning.

When employees began, he or she worked to attain job security and was highly motivated. After that security was felt, he or she needed something more for motivation. The solution lies in motivating the person beyond job security.

Encouraging employees to pursue excellence is not easy. Excellence requires full engagement in the job. The reason employees don’t fully engage is because they lack motivation. If all the Pretzel Mania employees were motivated, no problem would exist, but that isn't the case. Despite the fact that some employees work with low motivation, it is good as an employer to reward good work. Rewarding employees isn't a new concept to Pretzel Mania, since the company has a reputation for above average pay.

The purpose of a human resource department is to motivate employees beyond pay, and to optimize employee performance. Employees are individuals who are motivated to work hard for different reasons. Each person wants a customized combination of time, recognition, money, status, music, relationships, and much more.

You might be thinking, “We just want to get the work done. Won’t implementing this plan complicate the simple objective of producing product? If we try to fix everyone’s problems, nothing will ever get done.” There is a solution. Remember, the goal is to maintain high motivation for high performance.

Each employee has a mind that is unique and complex with vast resources locked inside of him or her. Imagine 44 people pursuing an ever-increasing excellence every day. This occurrence will create a level of performance high above normal output. Everyone would be in passionate pursuit of improvement all the time. Can a human resource department unlock this vast resource?

For now, the human resource department would start with a human resource specialist. This specialist would help each employee create a plan. There would be no tricks, manipulation, excessive pay, threats, micro-management, or domination. The specialist shows employees how to make a plan, and keeps them on track every 90 days.

The specialist helps employees evaluate and manage themselves. He encourages them to think to get the job done. When employees don’t actively think, work quality slides, which would require endless effort to react to it and manage.

Reactive methods use employee evaluations to advance employees. It is a method that reviews the past six to twelve months of performance, then corrects for slippage, and makes recommendations to adjust work to an adequate level. It is a backwards model. Looking backwards doesn't motivate to improve or change, but future planning does.

This HR plan is mutually beneficial for both employees and Pretzel Mania. In the plan, each employee makes 2-3 SMART goals every 90 days. As the employee accomplishes his or her goal, Rolling Hills has the benefit of a more competent employee. When Pretzel Mania invests the time and effort through an HR specialist, the employees will be motivated to improve, resulting is excitement and passion for the future.

This passion is what drives employees to work with active minds. As they pursue their goals, they will be excited about their future potential. That passion and excitement drives them to work with excellence. The SMART Goal System is the key to the HR Plan.

My goal is to compile an HR manual, which detail other HR methods which support the SMART Goal System. The handbook would be at least thirty to forty pages.

Remember, the employees drive their own goals. The system never allows the employee to rely on the HR specialist. From the start, the employee creates the goal, pursues the goal, and completes the goal. There is a specific approach to doing this.

Implementing SMART

During SMART Goal sessions, the HR specialist will ask specific questions to lead employees in creating goals. They will evaluate themselves to make goals for improvement. Even if the HR specialist wants specific improvements for the employee, those can be discovered through the employees own evaluation.

It might take two or three goal-setting sessions to achieve efficiency at this process. If the first goals, which are set, are too ambitious or too easy, that is okay. Employees will learn by experience. A SMART goal has the following characteristics: It is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and trackable. The HR manager aids the employee in this process, and the two together, will eventually make a 90-day goal that is SMART. The goal must not change during the 90-day period.

After employees make their goals, it is their responsibility to accomplish them. Unless the goal has a scheduled checkpoint, at 30 or 60 days, the HR specialist will make no special effort to check the progress. After 90 days, in the session, the HR Specialist will ask, “How did you do on your goal?” Some employees will have accomplished 80%, and others 45%. The amount accomplished is not the point. The purpose of the session is for the employee to make improvement. In addition, accomplishing 45% of a goal, which was too ambitious in the first place, is an excellent result. Eventually, employees become experts at setting goals, and succeed in achieving 100% of their goals. You can understand how this plan is a satisfying system.

This plan can be compared to evaluations where managers evaluate on a subjective scale from 1-10, using subjective categories, which can’t be measured. Additionally, no evaluator ever puts 10 across the chart, because who can be that good! It is a lose-lose system. Creating the SMART Goal System is a win-win system.

Initially, it will take 1 or more hours for each employee’s session, but eventually, the employee will become a professional at setting goals. The employee will quickly complete the process in about 10 minutes. He or she will efficiently outline the result, and prepare three new goals to start the next 90-day period. The system is designed to make cognizant employees who are always improving and pursing excellence.

The objective of the HR specialist is to make the employee comfortable in setting goals. The object is not to control the employee, but to guide and support him or her. For bilingual purposes, Lupe and I would conduct the sessions with each employee in the beginning. Eventually, I would like to learn Spanish to conduct the sessions on my own.

Employees will think of many goals. Each goal will range from learning Microsoft Office to learning English, from job skills to weight loss, from efficient production to personal finance. When many people make similar goals, Pretzel Mania could support them by offering classes. These classes could include Spanish-to-English or sanitation certification. The classes could be 3:00 P.M. to 4:30 P.M. This time slot is after the morning shift and before the evening shift. The employee would choose to attend the classes voluntarily, but Pretzel Mania would sponsor the class without a fee.

Some employees will oppose the SMART Goal system completely. This situation is normal, because people don’t necessarily like change. For those people in opposition to the plan, the HR specialist would develop simple and easy goals. After a few sessions in the goal-setting process, they will begin to understand the benefit of the system.

Items Addressed by HR Plan 

Many other benefits would come with the SMART Goal System, as will other HR ideas which would be included in the HR handbook. Each one of the following items would be addressed by this HR Plan.

·         Fitting a round peg in a round hole;

·         Creating a training plan during the hiring interview;

·         Coaching employees towards excellence;

·         Counseling employees to be highly motivated;

·         Rewarding employees for high performance;

·         Unifying the company with one primary objective;

·         Rewarding employees for contributing to company improvements; and

·         Employing a method for employee discipline, when needed.

Direct Benefits from HR Plan

 Employee’s will:

·         Own his or her job;

·         Feel pride in the company;

·         Seek improvements;

·         Seek excellence;

·         Be excited about his or her work;

·         Help each other;

·         Communicate more efficiently with associates; and

·         Manage his or her weight and health.

Managers will have employees who:

·         Are excited and eager to work;

·         Have no need to be monitored;

·         Have creative ideas that are useful for productions;

·         Have high morale;

·         Perform and record sanitation procedure better; and

·         Produce better production reports.

Pretzel Mania will:

·         Have product processed faster and cleaner;

·         Have less wasted product;

·         Have employees with high skill levels;

·         Support excellent work habits;

·         Develop employees’ futures;

·         Resolve conflicts without getting involved;

·         Save employee work hours;

·         Decrease wasted employee work time; and

·         Receive enormous value from collaborated ideas.

Corporate Reputation will be:

·         Excellent product being sold;

·         Excellent procedure practice;

·         Stewardship of possessions;

·         Employees equipped to work with excellence;

·         Work schedules adapted to family needs; and

·         Employees who pursue healthy eating and living.

Starting the Plan

The first step would be to schedule SMART sessions with each employee. Sessions could be conducted Monday and Wednesday, between 7:30am-10:00am, totaling 5 hours a week, with a floater assigned to cover Area A. Five hours of writing on each Friday would allow for the development of the HR Handbook.

The other features in the HR handbook would be incorporated as time progresses. Once the SMART sessions are in process, these other HR components could be added to enhance the system.


In the SMART Goal System, there are 7 steps: 

1. Assessment
2. Mission/Vision
3. SMART goals
4. Timing
5. Responsibility
6. Action Item
7. Flexibility.