Generic goal examples rarely help. "Improve performance" means different things to a nurse, a salesperson and a software engineer. Below are specific examples by role. Adapt the numbers and dates to your own situation and baseline.
Sales
- Increase average deal size from £8,000 to £10,000 by Q4 by leading with the premium package.
- Raise the proposal-to-close rate from 25% to 32% this year.
- Build 20 new relationships with target accounts by June.
Marketing
- Grow organic website traffic by 25% in 12 months through a monthly content plan.
- Cut cost per lead on paid campaigns by 15% by Q3 without reducing lead quality.
- Launch a customer case study series with four published stories by year end.
HR
- Reduce time to hire for operational roles from 40 to 28 days by Q3.
- Increase completion of annual reviews from 70% to 95% by the deadline.
- Launch a new-starter survey and act on its top three findings within six months.
Finance
- Shorten the month-end close from 10 working days to 7 by Q2.
- Automate three manual reconciliations by September.
- Provide each budget holder with a monthly one-page variance report from April.
Operations and logistics
- Reduce order errors from 2% to under 1% by year end.
- Cut average delivery lead time by one day by Q3.
- Document standard operating procedures for the five most common tasks by June. See SOPs and goal setting.
Customer service
- Reduce first-response time on emails from 24 hours to 8 hours by Q2.
- Lift customer satisfaction scores from 82% to 88% this year.
- Increase first-contact resolution from 65% to 75%.
IT and technical roles
- Reduce average ticket resolution time by 20% by Q3.
- Migrate the team's three legacy tools to the new platform by November with no unplanned downtime.
- Write documentation for every system you support by June.
Managers
- Hold fortnightly one-to-ones with every direct report all year.
- Improve team engagement survey scores by 10 points.
- Develop one team member ready for promotion within 12 months.
Did you know? Peter Drucker introduced "management by objectives" in his 1954 book The Practice of Management. His idea that managers and employees should agree objectives together is the foundation of almost every modern goal-setting system, including OKRs.
How to adapt these examples
- Find your baseline. Replace the example figures with your current numbers.
- Pick what matters to your manager. See how to set goals your boss will approve.
- Limit yourself to three to five. See how many work goals you should have.
- Add a development goal. See professional development goals examples.
The bottom line
Good goal examples are specific to the role, measurable and realistic against your baseline. Use these as a starting point and adjust the numbers. For a framework that works in any industry, see our Business Planning and Goal Setting course.