I'm making SMART objectives for my HR department, out of which one is " To enhance human resource organizational capability and performance through development of organizational structure, policies and their processes."

My question is how do we are going to measure this? through successful implementation of the process???

Are we cutting our own throats? Probably. But since most everybody else is doing the same things I am, that is, making up SMART objectives that I can be sure I’ll meet, the evaluation process ends up the same way, with management in a room, making perfectly rational decisions about salaries. (no. i’m serious, not sarcastic. i think the Evil One is exactly right about how salaries are determined)

Never having been privy to any of these discussions, I fantasize that maybe, just maybe, the discussions revolve around: if we had to cut people, who would we cut last…..

I just wanted to say as a recruitment consultant, I do enjoy your witty posts.

when I started in recruitment 20 years ago I was trained to never speak to HR, how things have change.

Although I gave you a mention on my blog, I want to say I do not find HR so evil, with many becoming good friends, just so you don’t get the wrong idea!

Mind you in the UK we must drive HR up the wall!!

There are at most six or seven key tasks for any job. You must know what they are and how to describe good and bad performance. You must also know your people, their ability to perform each task without close supervision, and their general willingness to pitch in without follow-up.

Then you need to agree on the following.

Behavior or performance. What is to be done?

Timing. When is it to be done, measured or reviewed?

Measurement. How will we know if it’s done well? Who will decide? This is important because some measures of performance are necessarily subjective.

Consequences. What are the consequences of good and bad behavior or performance?

Control. How much control will you allow your subordinate to make the basic choices about when and how the task will be done.

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I applied for my current administrative position, I asked my now-supervisor what success looked like for this position. She said that it took constant communication to be successful, to keep everyone up to date on each of my projects, and that missing a deadline would be OK as long as people knew well ahead of time. Translating that into a SMART goal might be difficult, but it would be worth doing, because communication skills are highly important in positions such as mine.