Greenpeace is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that focuses on global environmental issues. The NGO uses “none combative approaches and creative confrontations in its quests for green solutions and a peaceful future” (source: https://www.greenpeace.org/international/). Greenpeace strives at ensuring that the “Earth nurtures life in all its diversities” (source: https://www.greenpeace.org/international/).
As such, it aims at protecting biodiversity in all its forms, prevent pollution and abuses of the Earth’s natural resources, eliminate all nuclear threats, and enhance peace, global disarmament, and non-violence.
Greenpeace Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relate to areas of Human Resources (HR), communications, and volunteer relations.
In the HR department, KPIs include compensation, rewards, and benefit plans, recruitment, employee orientation, administrative tasks, employee relations, and level of engagement or satisfaction among employees and volunteers.
Administrative duties including managing personnel files, update organizational charts, participation in employee meetings, review employees’ information for wrongful entries.
Recruitment indicators covers areas of finding qualified staff, application forms have correct details, accurate posting of vacancies, and recruits go through all areas of pre-employment procedures.
Employee orientation includes arrange for orientation trainings, educate new hires on organizational culture, and get information regarding wages, benefits, rewards, and payroll. KPIs also include induction and signing of codes of conduct, and monitoring of acceptable trainings.
Compensation KPIs entail processing of payroll with no mistakes, check areas of overtime, account for paid leave days, and analyses of vacation benefits. In addition, there is also demonstration of knowledge of the organizational compensation policy, and motivational aims.
Employees and volunteer relations cover areas of promotion of teamwork, management of conflict, responses from the HR department regarding queries, and both employees and volunteers willing to demonstrate a sense of cooperation and retention. In the area of volunteer relations, KPIs cover office assistances, hours of inputs in campaigns, number of copies translated from English to French, the number of volunteers involved in fundraising, campaigns, and volunteers that have completed their schedules successfully.
Communication department KPIs includes public relations, advertisement, promotion, and e-promotions.
SMART Goals for the Organization and the chosen departments
We begin by identification of goals that are crucial for the success of the organization. Goals reflect the desired outcome Greenpeace wants to accomplish or achieve in the future. These goals are tactical in nature as they define short-term aims from specific organizational departments. They aim at motivating the staff and increase the level of commitment, offer guidance, and provide a platform for monitoring and measuring performance (Barton, 2000).
Goal definition within an organization provides opportunities for conceptualization the way forward for the organization. Consequently, it enables responsible departments to develop and master the future direction of the organization. This is a means of assuring stakeholders that the organization will achieve its mission within a specific period.
Scholars recommend that goals should meet some defined criteria that those responsible for their monitoring and measurement can use to gauge such goals (Barton, 2000). Most organizations have adopted the SMART approach to define and evaluate their goals. Goals must identify the mission and stakeholders of the organization. SMART goals help the organization identify appropriate KPIs for measuring achievements towards such goals.
Identification of SMART goals in the organization helps the organization defines a path of serving its mission and creating value to various stakeholders involved. KPIs usually monitor and measure the organizational SMART goals identified in any department (Davis, 2009). In this context, the goals must demonstrate certain characteristics such as specific, quantifiable, attainable, reasonable, and timely.
Thus, we must apply SMART principle to any goal that relates to KPIs. We shall have SMART goals for the organization in HR, communications, and employees and volunteer engagement and satisfaction rate. At the same time, there shall be three KPIs for the goals that we seek to improve. These goals take into account impacts of KPIs on every indicator, and abilities of both employees and volunteers to execute them successfully. Therefore, the organization has full control over the goals.
In the HR department, we seek to look at HR department response to queries from employees and volunteers. We have noticed that the HR department takes longer than usually to respond to both volunteers and employees’ queries. Thus, we have identified SMART goal to monitor and measure performance for improvement purposes.
We seek to increase the rate of responding to queries by the HR department from 72 hours to 24 hours between June 2012 and December 2012. This represents a 33 percent increment in the rate of response.
In employee and volunteer engagement, we seek to know the overall level of both employees’ and volunteers’ satisfaction and engagement with the organizational work aspect of eliminating nuclear threats. Thus, the goal is to enhance the level of both employees’ and volunteers’ engagement in work aspect of eliminating nuclear threats from the current 10 percent to 25 percent by the end of the year 2012. This represents a 15 percent increment in six months.
Greenpeace work aspects depend on communication. Thus, setting goals for communication is fundamental for success of the organizational mission. The goal is to enhance the use of social, and trendy media platform for campaigns in promoting the green future from the current 40 percent to 70 percent by the end of the year 2012. This reflects an increase of 30 percent in a period of six months.
Increased Accountability
Explanation of how Smart goals will enhance performance, transparency, and accountability including supporting strategies that demonstrate how to reach the goal
The primary aims of organizational goals are to motivate employees and volunteers. Thus, goals should demonstrate ambition but not serve the purpose of demoralization. Goals for measuring performance must show elements of action e.g. increase, and highlight areas of time lines, rating, and quantities.
These goals are relevant to departments and are specific in terms of areas of focus. This approach attempts to align goals with specific departments and in turn the organizational mission. For instance, Greenpeace aims at increasing the level of employees and volunteers’ involvement in achieving the goal of eliminating threats of nuclear activities by 15 percent within six months.
Time and end periods enable employees and volunteers to know when they should achieve their goals. Thus, employees and volunteers no longer see such goals as suggestions but real.
The department should measure goals and performance using job appraisal processes. The specific nature of goals enables easy evaluation of the achievements against set targets.
Studies show that a yearly performance review tends to have low levels of effectiveness due to longer durations. This explains why we set Greenpeace goals within six months. This reduces possibilities of referring to goals when appraisal period approaches. Short-term goals enable employees and volunteers focus on their activities of the day and avoid distraction to achieve both individual and departmental goals.
Goals also promote accountability and engage employees and volunteers in productive activities for the organization. Greenpeace goals are SMART. This is one approach of enhancing accountability in measurement and performance. Employees and volunteers must set SMART goals for their respective departments.
The department must capture all SMART elements in every goal that it aims to measure. Departments must identify specific areas such as time, quantities, rates, and names of indicators so as to reduce complexities associated with defining goals. In fact, employees, departmental heads, and volunteers should give the name of the goal, its detailed description, milestones, means of gauging outcomes, commencing date, and date when it is due.
The department must set priorities for attainment of its goals. In cases where there are competing priorities, the department must identify the most crucial goal for its success. Consequently, it must focus its resources and effort in order to attain such goals.
For instance, Greenpeace communication department must prioritize popular and emerging social media so that it can reach that segment of populations instead of relying on print communications. Both employees and volunteers must comprehend the value of each goal and levels of competency they require. Prioritization enhances decision-making in cases of scarce resources.
The department should also create a means of reminding employees and volunteers about goals and their components such as due dates and milestones achieved and gaps. This improves transparency and accountability.
SMART goals tend to align both the workforce and organizational goals in order to achieve organizational mission. Most studies have demonstrated that, employees who understand how their daily inputs contribute to the overall mission of the organization are more accountable than their counterparts who lack such knowledge. Therefore, for improved performance, accountability, and transparency, employees and volunteers must understand that their individual contributions do matter to the organization.
The department should communicate to its workforce through setting goals at slightly higher levels and then distribute the targets to the workforce. The idea of distribution enables every staff conceptualizes how an individual’s efforts are necessary for Greenpeace to achieve its overall goals. It also enables every staff track his or her achievements and current status. This enhances a sense of accountability in the department.
Accountability, transparency, and performance go together. People tend to perform tasks best when there is a supervisor or when they can easily identify effects of their contributions in an organization. Therefore, the department should provide tools to enable its workforce monitor and communicate their progress.
The organization can implement technological innovation that can assist employees monitor their progress through employees’ portal or in the organizational intranet. Such applications provide summaries of what an individual should deliver, time, and the gaps left. This provides opportunities for employees and volunteers to keep their team leaders up-to-date with their performance statuses.
Managers can have unlimited access to their direct reports performances. At the same time, the executives can also access such reports and can also send their feedback to individuals who directly contribute to organizational goals. Such levels of monitoring enhance accountability, transparency and improve performance among employees. Likewise, the management can redirect resource to areas that need attention so as to enable everyone account for their performances.
How the planning process and establishment of SMART goals and increased accountability among employees will lead to a better employee (and volunteer) retention and increased employee morale
Performance management using SMART goals to enhance both employees and volunteers morale and retention is not an easy task. Thus, several skills and training are necessary among departmental managers. Training is necessary to enable managers feel confident about tasks before them. This is useful in cases where some management team may be newly promoted.
According to MacMillan, managers must “understand human behavior, how to motivate, how to develop, provide coaching, and handle conflict” (MacMillan, 2012). Managers play significant roles in observing and managing the prevailing circumstances, offer motivation, and manage issues that may interfere with implementation of SMART goals.
Enhancing morale and motivation implies that managers must understand individual differences of the workforce such as abilities, experiences, and support needed. Thus, preparing managers for planning, implementation of SMART goals, evaluation, and provisions of feedback will lead to goal achievements, employee motivation, and retention.
The organization should also link “SMART goals, performance with rewards and recognition” (MacMillan, 2012). Performance management should be fair, transparent, and equitable so that employees can believe in the process.
Rewards, benefits, and compensation should be consistent throughout the organization. Consistency ensures that there is transparency and accountability and in turn enhances employees’ satisfaction with the goals and job. Organizations that link their “compensation procedures with performance must be critical of this issue” (MacMillan, 2012). The organization should have consistent and fair compensation policy across all departments. Thus, any deviation may lead to dissatisfaction and reduced morale and motivation among employees.
How the overall plan will better enable the organization to fulfill its mission
A better implementation of SMART goals for achieving Greenpeace mission of green and peaceful future starts with performance planning. SMART goals are the basis for performance planning. SMART goals have actionable plan that will guide both employees and volunteers work towards achievements of the organization overall mission.
Achieving the mission through SMART goals should be a collaborative process among management teams, employees, and volunteers. Every target element must have a clear description and realistic expectation.
Planning processes must identify both long-term and short goals that work towards achievement of organizational mission. At the same time, there should be clear implementation strategy on how each department shall attain its objectives. Every department must prioritize its goals.
There should also be a clear and detailed method of evaluation. Greenpeace must also identify factors that may hinder it from achieving its SMART goals. Organization should offer training, motivation, and mentoring to overcome any issues that concern employees or volunteers such as behavior, attitude, skills, or knowledge.
The departments must carry out regular monitoring, assessment, and solve issues that may hinder SMART goals for achieving organization mission. There can also be changes in direction, reallocation of resources, and training during implementation stages. Communications and feedback are crucial during these stages so as to enhance continuous improvement of the team.
Mission aim should be an ongoing process in the organization. Processes of planning, setting SMART goals, performance planning, monitoring, feedback, and continuous training are mandatory for achieving the mission of the organization. These processes also provide opportunities for the organization to identify any gaps that may affect progresses. There should be full participation of all members of the organization so that teamwork can deliver the mission.
References
Barton, R. (2000). Organizational Goal Setting and Planning. Murray, KY: Murray State University.
Davis, J. (2009). Managing and Achieving Organizational Goals. New York, NY: American Management Association.
MacMillan, A. (2012). Importance of Performance Management Process & Best Practices To Optimize Monitoring Performance Work Reviews/Feedback and Goal Management. Raising the Bar on Performance Management Process, 1, 1- 6.