If you’re running a business, you need to make sure that every member of your team is carrying their weight and moving in the same direction. OKRs can make the process easier, ensuring a single direction for the firm to move in and delivering demonstrable benefits for your company. The question is, what exactly are OKR tools and how do you utilize them to drive the productivity and performance of your teams?
A goal-setting process known as OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results, and it’s designed to track progress and keep your team on the same page by using measurable goals and objectives. With the OKR management framework, your employees will be more focused and productive to attain the established objectives.
What’s the deal with OKRs?
Now you’re probably asking yourself, “How do I use OKRs?” If you’re still interested in learning more about that, don’t worry. Nevertheless, in order to fully address this issue, we have to go over precisely how they function in greater detail. Previously, we covered how OKRs add quantitative measurements to otherwise qualitative goals. Anyone may get information that executives can use to gather insights into the productivity of their organization, regardless of their position. Even though the goals of different levels of an organization are different, you may still track their contributions using the same key outcomes. This is the reason OKR software is highly popular in organization that aim for high growth and consistent success.
The major outcome you use might be as complex or as simple as you choose, depending on your purpose. Consider, for example, increasing the number of people who view your business’s blog. There is nothing more straightforward than counting the number of articles written or clients that are received each week.
Goals aren’t always as clear-cut as they appear to be. If you want to make your organization a better place to work, but you don’t know how to quantify it, what do you do? You may, for example, conduct a survey of your employees to see whether or not they support and are happy with the changes you plan to implement. Remember that you don’t have to focus solely on one important outcome for each goal. Consider issues like sick days and employee turnover when monitoring your employee’s Net Promoter Score.
The OKRs also don’t have to mirror the company’s overall goals. Personality might also play a role in the process. If you just want to enhance your career chances or simply have a more enjoyable working experience, an OKR can help you keep track of your progress. As a result, they’re a terrific resource for businesses wishing to promote professional development among their employees.
OKRs to drive productive and high-performing teams
After going over the reasons for using OKR management framework and how to utilize them, you might be wondering how do you use it to establish productive and high-performing teams. Well, let’s find out:
a. Make your employees aware of how their contribution feeds into the organizational objectives
Having a sense of purpose in our job is critical to employee engagement. It’s easy to lose interest in your work if you can’t see how it affects others. What’s the point of doing anything if it doesn’t make a difference?
Keeping a running tally of important outcomes is beneficial whether you employ a custom graphical user interface (GUI) or just an Excel spreadsheet. The fact that you can see how your employees’ efforts positively impact the company’s overall health is an added benefit. Having employees self-report on their development through OKR management is usually the most effective strategy.
b. Numerous key results make your data more robust
Don’t forget that you might have multiple key outcomes for a single objective. Having a few different key results can really be beneficial to your data. You should have a set of two to five essential outcomes for each goal. There is a limit to how many things you can keep your attention on at once.
c. OKRs are the most effective when updated on a regular basis
Using OKR tools or any other professional goal-setting technique should help you get a better sense of how far you’ve come over time. If your employees are updating their progress on OKR software on a regular basis, you’ll have a more accurate picture of their development. Because of this, you can monitor changes in productivity from week to week as well as month to month.
d. Don’t avoid using stretch goals
It’s an aim that’s even more splendid than the original one. It is named for the idea that a stretch goal should push you out of your comfort zone. The more you expand yourself, the more you’ll eventually be able to do things that seemed impossible at first. Stretch objectives force you and your team to reassess how you do something in order to come up with new, better ways of doing things. It is recommended that stretch objectives should have a completion rate of roughly 70 percent. You can tell if your team isn’t stretching and re-evaluating if they consistently meet all of their objectives.
In addition to this, there are multiple reasons why companies use OKR software. From the top-down, it is easier to adopt organizational changes that can be adapted. With the help of OKRs, teams can work together more effectively because everyone is aligned with the same goals and strategy.
Employees can become more productive by using OKRs, which not only improves overall performance but also increases revenue . It’s a strategy that, if used correctly, can yield tremendous returns for your company.
Need more information about OKR tools? Reach out to us today!
Gaurav Sabharwal
CEO of JOP
Gaurav is the CEO of JOP (Joy of Performing), an OKR and high-performance enabling platform. With almost two decades of experience in building businesses, he knows what it takes to enable high performance within a team and engage them in the business. He supports organizations globally by becoming their growth partner and helping them build high-performing teams by tackling issues like lack of focus, unclear goals, unaligned teams, lack of funding, no continuous improvement framework, etc. He is a Certified OKR Coach and loves to share helpful resources and address common organizational challenges to help drive team performance. Read More