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How to Smash Your Company’s Goals Using an OKR

by Biljana Denic

If you relish winning, you must be incentivized by goals. Winning is an achievement of set goals over a specific period. Therefore, goal setting has been an essential aspect for every company to ensure that it remains competitive and workers feel the achievement. 

Notably, goal setting improves staff engagement and performance, especially when the objectives are clear and achievable. So, if you want the next quarter to be the best in your company, you need to develop an effective and efficient strategy that will align every employee towards the objectives.

Basically, you need to know about the OKRs framework. Sites like this Profit.co have developed numerous OKRs software that applies for different company structures and sizes to achieve overall and specific objectives.

What is OKRs?

Source: clearpointstrategy.com

The abbreviation stands for Objectives and Key Results. The OKRs framework is a goal-setting strategy used by companies, teams, and individual employees to set ambitious goals achievable within a given time.

In most cases, these objectives’ achievement is tracked in quarters for timely feedback and necessary change or improvement. The key results measure every goal that is set through this framework.

Although you may find the OKRs goal-setting method new, it has been tried and adopted by notable tech companies like Google and Amazon.

What Are The Benefits Of Using The OKRs Framework?ž

Source: unlockokr.com

Throughout the development of this framework, companies have recorded numerous benefits resulting from its implementation. It is worth noting that every organization has different benefits depending on the framework’s application at different levels.

Nonetheless, every company’s five common benefits that are likely to be experienced utilizing the OKRs framework are outlined below.

  • Tracking- Setting the OKRs framework provides an effective platform to track the progress at all organizational levels. Besides, the framework enables you to use metrics and data like never before.

Since the framework is strategized quarterly, you can detect any mishaps as soon as they happen since they will affect the overall employee performance and the attainment of the organizational objectives.

Smaller bits of achievement set for every quarter will help you understand what needs to be added in your company’s specific section or what needs to be limited. This way, you will not be shocked by low performances at the end, as is the case with traditional goal-setting methods.

  • Commitment- Using the OKRs framework ensures that every employee in your company clearly understands their roles and expectations. Besides, the framework provides a specific timeframe that every task should be completed at every level.

In this case, everybody becomes committed to ensuring that their objectives are met and on the right track. Besides, the managers ensure that the right resources are utilized appropriately to help every employee achieve their objectives timely.

The interaction between the different levels in the company enhances commitment as every employee’s performance, and achievement is based on their commitment to the tasks ahead and availability of resources and feedback.

Source: upraise.io

  • Focus- Focus is a very critical aspect in every company that seeks to succeed and remain competitive. It is incredibly easy to lose focus in the contemporary world, especially when dealing with a large company or ineffective strategies.

You will experience developing issues in different sectors with some requiring immediate response. These occurrences may obstruct your commitment to performance and goal achievement. Besides, the lack of focus would cause a ripple effect throughout the company to the subordinate staff.

For that reason, you need to incorporate a modern strategy that ensures that employees remain on track even in cases of unexpected circumstances or confusion. With the OKRs framework, every employee will have a clear objective, focus, and target that keeps them on track all through.

  • Alignment- As long as every stakeholder in the company is focused, it is easy to keep them aligned. The OKRs framework ensures that every employee, from the managers to the interns, prioritizes specific tasks, processes, and actions to ensure that they achieve their objectives.

This way, they put every other thing at bay to avoid losing focus or failing to meet their targets in a given quarter. So, employees need to understand the importance of meeting the OKRs regardless of the unique circumstances in every department or team.

Employee objectives contribute to the teams’ target, which then is consolidated to make up the organizational objective which is determined by the achievement of the key results.

  • Stretching- Relax, this is not about physical activity throughout the workplace but about achieving what was deemed possible even before you started the task.

Remember that every OKRs strategy should be ambitious, meaning the employees must put their best efforts to achieve their objectives. Setting the objectives and the key results ensures that your employees are pushed to the limits to do what they can do best. The determination to achieve helps you discover the employees’ potential and reward them appropriately for exceeding expectations.

OKRs constantly keep you stretching to do better and achieve more in the next quarter. Therefore, it is acceptable not to achieve 100% of your objectives and key results, meaning you will need to stretch in the next quarter.

Profit.co is one of the popular sites with practical and simple OKRs tools you can use to improve your company’s performance.

What Will My Company Achieve By Using Sites Like This?

Source: bounteous.com

Advanced technology has helped simplify the development and implementation of the OKRs framework for companies.

Sites like this simplify the entire strategy making the process transparent for all stakeholders while clarifying the goals and enhancing interaction. With this tool, you don’t need to call stand-up meetings as you can conduct simple online check-ins allowing workers to plan their routine as long as they have the company vision in mind.

It is easier to smash your company objectives with the OKRs strategy than through the traditional performance review or appraisals. The process has been simplified even further by the readily available OKRs tools that only need scrutiny and implementation in your company systems. Chiefly, the implementation process should involve everyone to keep them on the same line and understand the basis behind all the objectives and strategies.