What are SMART goals?

SMART goals meet these criteria:

• Specific: What is the specific task or goal?
• Measurable: How will you measure whether employees are making progress?
• Achievable: Can your team realistically meet the goal with the resources provided?
• Relevant: Does the goal support your organizational objectives?
• Time-bound: What is the deadline for completing the goal?

“Increase sales” is too broad to meet the SMART criteria because it doesn’t define the amount, method or deadline.

A more specific version is: “Increase sales by 8% by the end of the third quarter by following up with all inactive leads.” It identifies the result, method and deadline.

What are some types of work-related SMART goals?

You can use the SMART framework to set several types of goals. The most appropriate type depends on what you hope to accomplish.

• Activity goals: An activity goal focuses on completing a specific amount of work. For example, you might want your copywriter to complete one sales letter per week.
• Development goals: A development goal helps employees gain new knowledge or skills. A manager interested in developing their leadership skills might attend a workshop, take a leadership class and implement two new coaching techniques.
• Outcome goals: Outcome goals focus on the results produced by an individual contributor or a team. Increasing customer satisfaction scores by 10% within one year is an example of an outcome goal.
• Process goals: Process goals relate to how employees complete their work. For instance, your IT department might want to introduce a standard ticket-escalation process within 30 days. Achieving this goal can reduce issue-resolution time.
• Team goals: A team goal involves having two or more teams work together to achieve a desired outcome. One example is asking sales and marketing to generate 100 leads that meet defined criteria.

Some objectives fit more than one category. An employee onboarding project, for example, may include both process and outcome goals. Defining the primary result can help you select the most useful measurement.

What are the SMART criteria?

SMART criteria can help you evaluate if an objective provides clear direction. Consider each element before adding a goal to a team or individual performance plan.

Specific

Specific goals clearly state the intended results. Employees should understand what they need to accomplish without having to interpret vague statements, such as “do better,” “improve performance” or “increase productivity.”

When setting goals, you may want to ask yourself these questions:

• What result do I want the employee or team to produce?
• Why does this goal matter?
• Which actions should employees take?

Suppose you want to improve your employer brand. A specific objective could be to increase careers-page traffic by 20% over three months. This version narrows the scope and identifies a result.

Measurable

A measurable goal identifies evidence employees and managers can use to track progress. Measures may be numeric, such as customer satisfaction or production volume, or a defined deliverable, such as one product manual completed by a technical writer each month.

Depending on your objectives, useful measurements may include:

• Sales conversion rate
• Error rates
• Production volume
• Employee satisfaction scores

Choose measurements that reflect the desired outcome. Call volume may measure a salesperson’s activity, but conversion rate or completed sales may be more useful if the goal is increased revenue.

Establishing a baseline beforehand helps you measure progress accurately. If you want to increase sales by 20%, you need to know the starting point so you can calculate the increase accurately.

Achievable

Achievable goals are challenging but realistic. Before finalizing one, confirm that employees have the resources and support they need to stay motivated while completing the work.

For example, asking a librarian to implement a new book-tracking system may require a software budget, suitable equipment and support from the IT department.

Before finalizing your goals, consider asking employees for their input. They may be able to identify missing resources or potential obstacles that you didn’t know about.

Relevant

Relevant goals support broader business needs. Before committing resources, confirm that the objective aligns with current department or company priorities.

Confirming relevance can help you:

• Align team priorities: Ensure individual work directly supports broader organizational objectives.
• Optimize resource allocation: Avoid dedicating time and budget to low-impact initiatives.
• Maintain strategic focus: Keep employees focused on outcomes that drive measurable business value.

For example, if your strategic priority for the quarter is improving customer retention, setting a goal to reduce average ticket response times from 12 to six hours directly aligns with that objective. In contrast, setting a goal to redesign internal newsletter templates isn’t as relevant.

Goal relevance may shift as business priorities evolve. Review goals periodically after budget, strategy or demand changes.

Time-bound

Time-bound goals include deadlines. Choose a timeframe that reflects the work involved and divide large projects into smaller milestones when needed.

For example, if you want to launch a new website within three months, you might ask your content writer to:

• Write the Home, About and Contact pages within two weeks
• Write a short bio for each employee within a month
• Develop a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page within two months
• Write 10 blog posts within three months

What are some examples of SMART goals for business?

Here are a few ways to apply the SMART framework to your business goals:

• Increase sales: Increase quarterly revenue from existing customers by 10% by December 31 by conducting follow-up meetings with our 10 largest accounts.
• Improve customer service: Reduce the average response time for support requests from 12 to six hours within four months by implementing a ticket-routing system.
• Reduce turnover: Lower first-year employee turnover from 22% to 15% by the end of the calendar year by introducing 30-day, 60-day and 90-day check-ins with new hires.

SMART goals work best when they are clear enough to guide action and flexible enough to review as conditions change. Connecting each goal to a business priority, a useful measure and a realistic deadline gives employees a practical path forward.

What is the SMARTER goal framework?

The updated SMARTER framework adds two steps that treat goal-setting as an ongoing process:

• Evaluate: Review the process, results and contributing factors to identify what worked and what needs improvement.
• Revise: Use that review to update the deadline, process, resources or measurement when appropriate.