Let’s have a one-on-one about goals

When was the last time you met with your supervisor and discussed company goals and your performance? I’m not talking about an annual review but just a brief meeting to review your annual goals. If you’re a manager, have you done the same with your team members?

At the beginning of each year, my manager and I discuss my goals for the upcoming year. They are determined by larger goals that senior management needs to accomplish. For example:

• Increase on-time delivery from 85 to 90 percent.
• Decrease overtime by 5 percent.
• Reduce machine cycle times by 3 percent.
• Purchase a new machine.
• Complete installation and validation of new machines.
• Cross-train operators.
• Lead three improvement projects.

Your required goals can be as specific as needed. The aforementioned examples allow discretion on how to accomplish goals.

As the goals trickle down to your team, they become more specific. For example, decreasing overtime by 5 percent could mean eliminating working one Saturday per month or working 8 hours every Friday instead of 10 hours. Cross-training operators could mean switching a particular operator from a turning center to a vertical machining center.

We use a form that lists objectives, due dates, measurement criteria and updates. Each is placed in a separate column. Again using decreased overtime as an example, the due date would be the end of the year. For measurement, use actual hours of overtime reduced during that year. Goals can be updated monthly. At the end of the year, you have the total hours saved to determine if you met your goal. You can include a column to indicate the weight of that item, with some items being more important than others.

This form has areas to discuss your level of engagement, what projects you are working on, any upcoming events and manager or supervisor support efforts. The level-of-engagement section indicates tasks that you should start doing differently, stop doing altogether or continue doing as you have in the past. The section covering what is being worked on gives updates on specific projects, such as evaluating a new boring system or rolling out new production requirements for a specific part. This section can have as many items as desired, tied to the prior section, to indicate your engagement level. The upcoming events section indicates any time off you have scheduled, any off-site or on-site training you’re planning to attend and any travel to other sites or vendor locations. Better to know ahead of time rather than later. The last section asks if your manager or supervisor is supporting you. This is the time to indicate if you need additional support for any of your projects.

As you can see, a lot of information would be presented in a 30- to 60-minute session on a monthly basis. This gives your manager or supervisor all the information needed to see if you’re winning the battle to achieve your goals, as well as the company’s goals.