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Set goals, manage your progress with stakeholders along the way, and achieve your goals on time.
Every year you are given the opportunity to set goals to become a better person. These goals can help you on your journey towards who you want to be and can help you be a better friend, family member, and employee. Knowing precisely how to set these goals and what goals you should aim to achieve can be challenging.
Rather than set vague goals, you need to understand what you should try to accomplish and have a support system to help along the way and check your progress. Assembly is a human resource solution that can help you set goals, manage your progress with stakeholders along the way, and achieve your goals on time.
Goal-setting is a crucial part of employee performance management and your personal life but can be a daunting task without specific guidelines to follow.
When developing goals for work or your personal life, it is critical to differentiate between a goal and an objective to effectively achieve your ambitions. Goals are a long-term desired outcome, whereas objectives are the steps you take along the way. Breaking down your larger goals into objectives gives you concrete steps to follow to achieve your outcome.
Business leaders and efficiency experts agree that the most effective goals follow the SMART acronym and are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
This first criterion can be thought of as the mission statement of your goal. What do you want to accomplish, and what specific actions will you take to achieve your goal? It should answer the popular “w” questions (who, what, when, where, which, and why) and determine the action verb of your SMART goal, for instance, “oversee” or “plan.”
What metrics will you use to determine if you meet your goal? This is typically a unit of time like one month, a unit of production such as 20 pages, or a comparative measurement like a 15% increase. If you are dealing with a longer-term goal, the measurable criteria encourage you to break down your goal into measurable pieces and set clear milestones along the way to track progress.
This criterion focuses on what you can do to make your goal attainable. To make a goal achievable, you may be required to develop new skills or change your outlook. Focusing on goal achievability can help you set realistic goals and prevents the discouragement that accompanies unattainable goals.
Relevance generally pertains to business goals but can be essential in various situations. This criterion establishes your goal within a broader context to determine its importance. Increasing your cake production rate is a relevant goal if you work in a bakery. If you work at a hospital, your speedy cake-making ability may be interesting, but it is irrelevant to your work.
Setting a realistic time frame for your goals will help you achieve them and allow you to keep tabs on your progress along the way. Select your deadline carefully and establish a way to check in with yourself or your employer as you work towards accomplishing it.
A time constraint can create a motivating sense of urgency, but an unrealistic time window will only lead to disappointment. If you’re facing an undesirable but necessary task, a smaller time frame can help you avoid procrastination so you can move on to your more fun, personal goals.
Simply put, setting goals provides our lives with purpose and direction. They keep us motivated and on track when we’re feeling distracted and ultimately help us turn our visions for the future into our reality.
With Assembly’s Goal Defining workflow, creating your personalized SMART goals is easier than ever. Assembly provides a user-friendly way to define and keep track of your goals so you can check back anytime and see how you’re doing.
Book a demo with Assembly today or try Assembly free.
Looking to make a change this year? Explore the following personal and professional development goal examples and use the SMART acronym to make them as specific and accomplishable as possible.
Starting with broad goal board ideas to improve your habits can help you identify the specific behaviors you would like to address with goal-setting. Take an honest look at your daily routine to find out where you would like to make improvements. Specific problem areas will likely emerge, which can become the foundation for your SMART goal.
For example, if you’re frustrated with the amount of TV you watch daily, set a time-bound, realistic goal of the number of hours you can watch every day and try it for one week. Ask a friend to join you if you’re worried about accountability with a goal like this.
If you’d like to make reading part of your daily routine, start by setting a daily or weekly reading goal that you can easily achieve, such as 15 minutes per day or 50 pages per week. You can always increase your goal’s time frame later if it seems appropriate.
Plan ahead. Set a specific time each day dedicated to building your reading habit, and plan to read in a comfortable, quiet space where you can focus without interruption. To make your goal more social, join a book club. If you’re tight on time, try an audiobook you can listen to while exercising or running errands.
Many people complain about their procrastination tendencies but aren’t sure how to address the problem. If you struggle to start tasks, setting a SMART goal to deal with procrastination can help you buckle down and get to work.
When faced with a tedious or unpleasant task, a SMART goal such as “I will fill out my time sheet every Friday after work for 10 minutes” can keep the work from piling up. When it comes to proactivity, keeping your goals relevant to either your work or personal values can increase both your short-term and long-term motivation.
Collaboration, the process of working towards a common goal with others, encourages cooperation and sociability, all of which contribute to overall happiness. This year, set a SMART goal related to collaboration, such as “I will set up a weekly 30-minute meeting to check in with the marketing team.” Collaboration increases workplace efficiency, and you might make some friends in the process.
Replace dreaded New Year’s exercise plans with fun and realistic dream board ideas to improve your physical and mental health. Implement a weekly, time-bound gym routine or commit to a Saturday morning yoga class. If you’re focused on the mental health side of things, several apps allow you to track your moods or problem behaviors.
What works for others may not work for you. Make sure your wellness goals will lift you up, not leave you feeling down.
While you may not believe that failure is a blessing, it may help you to create SMART goals that address areas you come up short. Whereas a goal like “I will not make mistakes” does not meet any of the SMART criteria, a phrasing like “I will take notes during my weekly meeting with my manager and review them before submitting my next assignment” is more effective.
Make gratitude a goal this year by starting a gratitude journal and jotting down three things you are grateful for before bed every night. If that isn’t your speed, set an alarm on your phone as a reminder to practice gratitude for a few minutes every day. Meditating on a grateful thought for 5 to 10 minutes daily, for example, on your daily commute or while in the shower, can help you meet your gratitude goals.
To practice persistence, list your weekly, monthly, and yearly goals and cross off each milestone as you reach it. Visually witnessing your accomplishments can motivate you to persevere through the most challenging tasks.
Commit to managing your stress this year by setting SMART goals that increase de-stressing activities like exercising and relaxing and decrease unnecessary stressors like procrastination. Set weekly wellness goals that are time-bound and realistic, and make modifications when necessary.
Self-care means something different to everyone, but common examples include getting enough good-quality sleep and taking time away from social media. To make these goals SMART, commit to a set bedtime for a week and set timers on your phone to take note of your energy level the following day, or deactivate your social media platforms for three days and see how you feel.
Need help with goal setting? Assembly offers flow templates that help you create and stick with your workplace goals.
Join for free today or book a demo with one of our employee recognition experts.
Get the foundational knowledge on creating an employee recognition program that boosts employee engagement and helps them feel valued.
Explore Guide
Yes, at Assembly, security is a top priority. Each quarter, we have ongoing security work that is everyone’s responsibility. While we maintain a strong security posture, it was important for us to prove to our customers that we do everything we claim to do. This led us to pursue a SOC 2 Type II report that would provide evidence of our compliance with industry gold-standard security practice.
There is study after study showing that employee recognition leads to increased engagement. This in return creates an environment where employees are happier and more motivated which increase productivity and reduces voluntary turnover significantly. In order to filled critical roles, companies tend to spend nearly twice the value of an annual salary. Assembly is an investment in your employees that supports your bottom line.
Yes, we will offer contracts for companies with longer-term agreements to help larger customers have more certainty around future costs.
The minimum agreement term is a 12-month subscription.
We do and for FREE! Any new customer needing further support to get started with Assembly to ensure you're set up for success can request custom onboarding support. Improving your employee experience is about much more than just using our amazing software; it’s about transforming your business to create a workplace that people love. That’s much easier to do with the personal support and advice from our passionate people experts.
At the time of redemption (when your employees exchange their points for a paid reward) you'll pay face value. If a reward is a $10 Amazon gift card, your cost will be $10. All paid rewards are billed for on a monthly basis.
The good news is that you don't have to pay for rewards upfront because we only charge you when points are redeemed, not when they're earned.
We offer discounts or educational or charitable organizations. In order to secure a discount, you'll first need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
For all other organizations, we are willing to consider longer-term agreements in exchange for discounts. To set up annual plans or longer, you will need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a month to month plan, you can go here and cancel anytime. If you're having concerns or need help setting up your account for success, you can always book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a longer-term custom plan, you'll need to reach out to your customer support specialist to cancel your account or email us at support@joinassembly.com.
Great question! You can customize your core values to match your organization's to boost and track alignment. You can change your currency from the 🏆 emoji (our default) to any emoji of your choice. You can swap our logo for your own. You can also set up company culture rewards such as, "Lunch with the CEO," "Buy a book on us," and so much more!
While we recommend a peer to peer set up where anyone in your organization can give or receive recognition, you can set up Assembly however you want. If you need to limit the people who can give or receive recognition, that's perfectly fine and can be done from your Admin, here.
Assembly connects to the tools your employees use every day to offer an easy, seamless experience with minimal change management.
Assembly has integrations with HCM/HRIS systems like ADP, Google, Office 365, and Slack. We also integrate with communication tools like Slack and Teams so you and your employees can access Assembly wherever they work now.
That depends on the company's permissions set up. That said, over 90% of the employees on Assembly's platform are recognized on a monthly basis. That means nearly every employee across all of our customers are receiving regular recognition from their peers, managers, or leadership. We're extremely proud of this.
They are not required. You can use Assembly without having rewards set up. However, we don't recommend it if you intend to have a high adoption and usage rate. You can always keep the costs down by offering internal culture rewards that are fulfilled by you internally.
No, you can remove allowances from anyone or everyone. It's up to you but we do recommend using points whether they're worth a real dollar value or not. Companies that use points have a much higher engagement rate even if those points don't exchange for real dollars.
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