Sustaining performance has become a roadblock in many organizations. During the pandemic working from home has changed how we work, for both employees and companies. Employees succumbed to fatigue, and mental health issues and overall wellness were at stake. and constantly sitting in front of their computers started to affect their mental health and performance. Organizations operate to create products, achieve profitability, and grow in terms of operation and scale with time. So, tracking company performance is vital for any organization that does not want to remain static.
At the organizational level, some sectors saw demand, whereas others saw a dip in demand. Companies that saw a dip in demand needed to explore new avenues, venture, and figure out what went wrong to stay in the market and see profitability during the crisis. Companies that saw their demand increase needed to stay relevant and scale their business quickly to grab the market.
So achieving consistent performance becomes a huge, monumental task for the employee and also for the organization that faces bringing out the best.
To see how objectives and key results (OKR) can help sustain performance in your company, first we shall see in detail the wonders of OKR.
What is OKR?
OKR is a goal-setting and goal-alignment framework that helps organizations, teams, and individuals define measurable goals and track their objectives. While keeping track of employees’ objectives, OKRs also help to align employees’ goals and objectives with company objectives to ensure that all the efforts don’t go wasted. By aligning themselves with the company’s objectives, employees understand that achieving success is not an individual performance but a team performance.
When used in this way, OKRs can help teams concentrate on aspirational goals and achieve more than they had originally anticipated, even if they fall short of the stated goal. Teams and individuals can use OKRs to prioritize their work, step outside their comfort zones, and learn from their successes and failures. OKR helps companies bridge the gap between strategy and execution and move from an output- to an outcome-based approach to work.
With the help of OKRs, managers and higher authorities can have a view of each employee’s performance and evaluate it based on it. It also gives a chance to the managers to have an eye on the team to see if they face any obstacles or roadblocks. OKR is a simple yet powerful tool for setting business targets, measuring progress, and achieving greater targets and success.
Key for sustaining performance in your company
During and after the pandemic, the major roadblock that most organizations face is issues in sustaining performance.
Now lets us see how OKR can solve this challenge: OKR is the perfect tool for achieving sustained and improving performance. OKR is a goal-setting framework that enables organizations to
1. Employee Awareness:
OKRs are a collaboration tool. Every employee must be aware and understand that all the contributions will be pooled into the goals of the organization as one. As John Heywood’s said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Ultimately, all objectives – individual or organizational are designed with organizational success in mind. Having employees self-report on their development to OKR software and growing as one is usually the most effective strategy.
By aligning their objectives with company objectives employees are often able to understand their performance and evaluate themself. An additional advantage is that you can see how your staff members’ efforts contribute to the success of the business as a whole.
2. Two-way communication and constant feedback:
Two-way communication is one of the reasons employees feel left out that has not bought to light. Miscommunications, one-way communication, and no proper feedback make the employees feel demotivated, affecting their performance toward their goals.
Regular check-ins and meetings must be conducted to proactively identify and resolve issues long before they become a performance crisis.
Using Datalligence OKR software to do regular check-ins help increase focus and productivity.
3. Transparency:
Visibility is crucial. The goals set by the organization must be transparent and understandable by all the employees to ensure proper flow. Employees at all levels of an organization need to have some degree of knowledge of what is happening.
OKRs help in maintaining transparency while progressing towards the goals by constantly updating the progress made by every employee. Also, they make it possible to calculate the risks involved with the key results.
4. Focusing on the task at hand:
OKR helps employees focus on objectives rather than day-to-day tasks, which will increase the focus on the larger picture. This unwavering focus on objectives leads to sustained performance.
5. Ownership of their performance:
OKRs set holistic goals and enable teams to deliver key measurable results that lead to their achievement. This enables teams and individuals to motivate themselves to innovate and find new ways to achieve their goals and objective. This also helps the managers to track the performance level of each employee and help them assess performance level. Using OKR each employee will understand accountability.
Is OKR a Performance Management tool?
OKR and performance management are both fundamentally different. While performance management focuses on assessing the performance of each employee and reviewing employees at the individual level, OKR doesn’t assess and review performance. OKR acts as a goal-setting framework and aligns goals that push the employees and organization to achieve their big goals.
While performance management is only used for assessing performance, OKR is used for goal setting and helps managers assess employees’ performance levels.
The key difference between OKR and Performance Management
Conclusion:
OKRs are not a replacement for performance management; rather, OKRs are a step above in the sense of goal setting and goal alignment. OKR pushes the entire organization towards achieving its big set of goals, and side by side, it also helps assess each performance to evaluate it. The fundamental idea behind OKRs is to establish inspiring goals and measurable key results. So, through efficient implementation, an organization can achieve performance with OKRs. Talk to our coaches to start your free trial.
