Devising a work plan

To implement the MBO approach in your workplace, you will need to draw up a work plan that will allow each of your managers and each member of their staff to effectively set their goals, in order to make them clearly defined and more easily achievable.

The following should be taken into consideration when putting your work plan into practice:

• Each employee should aim to set themselves between five and ten goals to improve upon the most fundamental functions of their role,
• A written statement of each goal should be prepared. This statement should aim to identify the goal, set out the work steps needed to achieve the goal, provide an estimated timeline for achieving the goal, and what methods will be used to evaluate its progression,
• Identify real and potential problems and obstacles that hinder the progress toward the goal, and outline ways of correcting them,
• Relate every goal back to each level of management within the business, and the overall objectives that have been set for the business.

To ensure that this management process is working for your business and your staff, it is important to regularly review the progress that your employees are making toward achieving their goals, and monitor how their performance is helping you to achieve your business’s goals.

It is possible that, after implementing this approach to management in your business, you will find that it is not working for your business. There are several reasons why this may be the case, the most common of which are not involving upper management in the process of setting and monitoring goals and progression, inadequate or unachievable corporate objectives or not putting proper preparation into installing the planning process.

If the MBO approach has not yielded the results you wanted for your business, consider why, and how you can fix these problems before deciding that it will not work for you.

No matter what approach you use to help plan for the future of your business and the development of your staff, it is important to find a planning process that works for you and will yield the results that you want for your business. Planning and goal setting will provide clear targets for you and your staff to achieve, and will ultimately help your business to develop, grow and become more successful.