Sample Goals and Objectives

In these articles you’ll find a treasure chest of performance management examples to help you understand how to write goals, review comments, development plans, meeting notes and more. We show you the good, the bad and the ugly using real samples. You’ll find out how the words we choose and how they’re said make all the difference.

Sample goals

Goals when set correctly are great! They bring purpose, direction and clarity to a role. But when they are set poorly, goals are a demotivator. That’s why its so important to set them carefully and discuss them with your staff.

Now, pretend for a moment that you are responsible for managing the operations of an IT business. Your manager has put in place some objectives. Which of these two columns of objectives, A or B, would you prefer to see in your performance plan? Why?

  • Key Result Area
  • Goal
  • {{content-2}}
  • Key Result Area
  • Goal
  • {{content-5}}
  • Key Result Area
  • Goal
  • Revenue – A
  • Make the business more profitable.
  • {{content-2}}
  • Workplace Health & Safety – A
  • Minimise number of reported incidents.
  • {{content-5}}
  • Service Delivery
  • Maintain system uptime.
  • Revenue – B
  • Increase profit after tax by 5% this financial year.
  • {{content-2}}
  • Workplace Health & Safety – B
  • Reduce the number of reported incidents this financial year by at least 7.5%.
  • {{content-5}}
  • Service Delivery
  • Achieve a minimum of 99.99% system uptime for this financial year.

No doubt that you’ll agree that column B provides far more clarity and direction to what’s required around performance for the coming period. Each goal is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound – SMART. Check out this article if you are interested in learning more.

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