If you are associated with a corporate organization, then you might have heard of the term OKRs – Objectives and Key Results.
OKRs refer to an objective or goal-setting technique. An OKR software can help companies to establish measurable goals. OKRs help you set, manage, and achieve goals through collaboration and feedback.
As a result, this fosters a transparent and cohesive work environment. When everyone is on the same page, your team is more likely to feel like they have a role to play and that they’re a part of something important.
Before knowing how OKR tracking helps build a positive company environment, we must know precisely what OKR software is and why companies use OKR.
What are OKRs?
In simple terms, OKR is a performance management software that helps a company to set and achieve objectives by developing certain measurable actions while communicating with the employees and tracking the progress towards the established goals.
There are various types of acronyms that help companies to monitor how far their business has progressed. OKR helps to integrate, associate, and engage every employee around the established measurable company objectives. OKR software is very significant for monitoring the teams in order to ensure that every member of the team is focused on their determined goals and that no one has fallen behind, along with encouraging them from time to time to give their best.
OKRs help all the employees of a company to concentrate and give importance to their most crucial targets and align the performance of the workers to the priorities of the organization. This software helps to intensify the performance of the employers while leading the organization towards achieving better results.
What are Objectives and Key Results?
An Objective in “objective and key results” is actually a strategic theme. It represents what an organization is looking forward to achieving. It acts as a title that names a set of key results. These objectives are qualitative as they only act as the name of a set of key results.
All the objectives need to be reviewed after every one to three months and all of them need to have at least 3 key results. This helps to determine the accomplishments obtained against the objectives.
A key result in “objective and key results” refers to what determines a company’s accomplishment towards its established goals.
Set, track, and measure goals!
Why do organizations use OKRs?
Before, organizations preferred to establish high-level company objectives every year. But due to lack of regular check-ins and assessments, employees forgot to establish objectives in a month or two.
This lead to passive management which built zero clarity among the employees. Things also got complicated for managers to review and determine the accomplishments of their employees.
It became tough to develop profitable, measurable business models while performing this way. To fight this problem, several huge companies adapted OKR tracking techniques, or OKR goals setting methodology.
Since Google began applying OKR software back in the year 1999, this framework has altered and improved objective establishing procedures. It has transformed into one of the most efficient systems that help in integrating company objectives with the employee’s objectives for huge corporations like oracle, BMW, Amazon, Anheuser Busch as well as many others.
What are the major elements of OKRs?
Using the OKR software means altering the ways an organization or group performs so that the companies get much more scope to achieve their objectives. Mostly, these alterations could help to influence and motivate or completely reshape your organization’s culture.
The OKR software creates an environment of focus, autonomy, transparency, accountability, and alignment. Below are some major elements of powerful organizational culture by an OKR software: –
● Focus:
Using the OKR system, one can easily encourage and motivate their teams in order to develop a strong understanding of focus by making their objectives as their priorities. As an outcome, everyone in a team knows their role as well as how they should work within that given role.
● Autonomy:
Achieving clearly explained key results can help all the members of a team to be less reliant. In this way, they do not need to depend on anyone for improving their work performance and working towards achieving results. This is why they are completely aware of what they should do, the process of doing it, and when they should do it.
● Alignment:
When a company develops OKRs, the company is developing them in context with its organizational objectives. This means that individual & departmental goals need to connect seamlessly to the company’s overall mission. This approach to goal creation makes sure that all the members of the company are on the same track when it is time to push the company forward.
● Accountability:
As OKRs cannot be forgotten after setting up, managers and leaders monitor the teams to see if they are actually contributing to achieving the objectives & key results. Most of the time this includes one on one meetings that help to assess progress & discuss other ways for the employees to develop their abilities and procedures for driving key results.
● Transperancy:
The OKR framework helps to concentrate on the elements beyond goal setting. When administered on OKR methodology, the company can see OKRs for the whole company as well as take a pulse check on the contributor’s main targets. This environment of transparency helps to build a much more unified team and can help leaders or managers to detect problems fast.
How OKRs build a positive work culture?
Regardless of how big and successful a company is, all industries are looking for a way to drive the performance of their companies by improving the company culture. Here is how adopting OKR could assist you to set a transparent and efficient work environment:
● Establish simple, long-term objectives
When the members of the team are clear about their task, it not only helps to increase their scope of finishing their task, but along with this it also helps to increase their daily performance. It also helps to make sure that all the contributors know how to develop great OKRs for achieving the best outcomes.
● Conduct weekly reviews & updates
Conducting team meetings with the employees helps to check how much they are progressing. This allows the leaders to give them feedback on their performance and inform them if they need to work hard or take different ways to get their work done.
This also helps the leaders to determine if the team members are going to complete their tasks on time or not. This level of transparency helps members of a company to grow. Moreover, having managers who really care about their job can make workers feel like significant contributors, fostering effective productivity and better engagement.
● Give recognition and credit
If an employee or team member is performing their duties well, leaders or managers must recognize their achievement. Praising them and giving them rewards also helps in making the members or employees feel appreciated and valued.
This also helps to increase the employee’’s satisfaction. The happier the employee will be with their work environment the more they will contribute to the company. It also helps to make the company culture highly positive.
How to set OKRs?
The flexible framework of the OKR system lets you establish & define OKRs in many ways. Like an objective, OKRs need to be measurable and achievable.
Objectives help to define the vision of the company. They need to be brief and encouraging. Companies generally develop 3 to 5 objectives with high value every three months. Objectives need to be ambitious. Choosing the right objective that will help the company progress is extremely challenging.
An OKR software is unique in many ways:-
● OKR software helps to convey the objectives of companies more accurately, clearly & consistently.
● It helps employees of an organization to understand their priorities.
● It also helps to integrate everyone’s individual goals to that of the organization’s goals.
● It provides the employee’s with a purpose and meaning.
● Allow the leaders or managers to review the progress of the members, which leads to higher productivity.
● Helps to develop unparalleled transparency, empowerment, and accountability
● Helps the leaders to be more efficient with their decisions.
Conclusion
OKRs not only helps a company to work efficiently but also helps every aspect of a company to grow, be it the manager or employees, and even improve the entire work environment.
With OKRs, people can understand their respective duties accurately which leads them to contribute their best and drive the company towards its goals. While leaders and executives learn how to interact and encourage their employees or team members. This whole thing leads to a positive company culture where everyone is working towards the same goal.
If your company is trying to find a way for establishing clear & achievable goals, then you should go for OKR software. With the help of an OKR advanced guide, you can easily implement OKRs and get your goal setting strategy right!
Zimyo OKR Software
Zimyo aligns your entire workforce with organizational goals. It empowers every team and individual by helping them witness how their work contributes to organizational success and makes a difference.
Zimyo OKR Software is a robust performance planning and monitoring software that helps organizations improve employee’s performance. With smart features like a automated OKR framework, 9-box matrix, 360-degree feedback, and employee evaluation, the software saves managers time and keeps track of employee’s performance.
Currently serving more than 1000+ organizations, Zimyo is helping organizations all around the world to achieve their targets. The platform offers seamless integration and functionalities like pay review, compensation, Hubspot, Calendar, and MS Teams.
It has other modules to manage the entire employee life cycle like – HR & Payroll Software, Applicant Tracking System, Time & Attendance Tracking, Employee Benefits, etc.
Features of Zimyo OKR Software
● Smart goal setting and management.
● Performance assessment thorough detailed report and analytics.
● Constructive feedback through 360 degree feedback mechanism.
● Ready-made OKR templates for different departments.
● 9 Box matrix to segregate achievers.
● Align teams with organizational goals
● Set, track, measure goals.
● Easy integrations with Payroll and HRMS.
● Workplace transperancy
● User-friendly and intuitive interface.
● Automated reminders
● Mobile application available for both Android and IOS users
● Automating the entire performance tracking process
● Eliminated biases and promoted a healthy culture
● Helps managers identify top talents
