Week 5 - Assignment - Managing Healthcare Workforce - Due tomorrow

Application: Establishing SMART Goals

Employee and organizational development is not only achieved through performance evaluations. A more proactive way of improving performance is to identify and work toward specific goals. One of the most popular methods of targeting goals is the SMART method, a mnemonic for the elements of effective goal setting. This method mandates the identification of goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.

In this Assignment, you will examine the SMART framework for goal setting. You then will apply that framework to one of your own long-term professional goals.

To prepare for this Application Assignment:

• Review the Learning Resources on SMART Goals. How is this method effective in a diverse array of goal-setting situations?
  
  
• Identify a long-term professional goal of your own and consider how you could use the SMART framework to expand and define your goal. **My long term professional goal is:  To become a HR Specialist.  I am currently a HR Assistant at the VA hospital in Houston, TX.**
  
  

To complete this Application Assignment, write a 1- to 2-page paper in which you define a long-term professional goal and develop a plan for attaining that goal. Address the following:

• Compare your current or recent position in an organization to which you currently belong (or have belonged) to the position that you would like to achieve 5 to 10 years from now. 
  **My long term professional goal is:  To become a HR Specialist.  I am currently a HR Assistant at the VA hospital in Houston, TX.**
• Using the SMART framework, determine five goals for reaching your objective of attaining this ideal position. 
  
  
• Evaluate how each of your goals will contribute to your professional development.
  

Support your work with specific citations from this week's Learning Resources and additional scholarly sources as appropriate. Refer to the Essential Guide to APA Style for Walden Students to ensure that your in-text citations and reference list are correct.

Web Article: Meyer, P. J. (n.d.). Creating S.M.A.R.T. goals.
Retrieved Aug. 16, 2011, from http://www.topachievement.com/smart.html