With the rise of digital transformation and innovation, we have entered the age of hyper personalization. Right from the ecommerce websites we shop at, to web streaming services we use, all suggestions are customized to suit our personal expectations and choices. In such a situation, it is only fair that the future of employee engagement also be about personalization. Using a cookie cutter approach to employee engagement is done and dusted. Each employee is unique and has different needs and expectations. While this has been the case for a long time, today technological innovations are making it possible to gather and analyze the necessary data that forms the bedrock for personalization. Organizations need to personalize the experience for every employee to ensure maximum productivity and robust performance. 

Future of Employee Engagement: Personalize Today

Organizations that seek to be at the forefront of employee engagement need to embark on the journey of personalization today. Following are a few bases to consider in the organizational journey to personalization towards the future of employee engagement:

It all starts with recruitment

Most organizations believe that employee engagement starts after employee onboarding. However, in effect, it starts from the first time a potential employee reads about an open position and applies for the same. It is very important for organizations to invest time and energy into identifying what competencies each role requires. Adding a few attributes to make the role more appealing to the target group is the perfect recipe for personalization for the future of employee engagement. Therefore, organizations that seek to hire on the basis of role suitability based on hyper personalization are the ones that have most impressive engagement scores. 

Redefining the work environment

Side-by-side desks, 9-5 schedule and in office work no longer excite or motivate today’s knowledge and creative workers to unleash their full potential. Organizations need to breed employee engagement by redefining the way their teams work. Offering the option of working from home and working at flexible timings when the creative energy is at its peak can be starting points. At the same time, organizations should take into consideration employee opinion and voice when deciding the office decor, cubicle architecture, type of meeting rooms, etc. This will enable employees to create a working space that engages, attracts and boosts them with positive vibes. 

Personalizing the learning curve

To a major extent, effectiveness of employee engagement is a function of the effectiveness of learning and training sessions. With multiple sources of knowledge available today, it would not be wise to consider that all your employees are at the same starting point for any training session. At the same time, they might also have completely different ideas of what they wish to train in and how they seek to consume the knowledge. Therefore, to ensure robustness in the future of employee engagement, organizations need to personalize the whole learning experience. This includes the training being offered which should be in tandem with personal gaps and needs of the employees. Also, the delivery of the same should be in different formats, following a blended approach of in-person sessions, online webinars and live sessions, as well as e-learning courses. 

Different levels of management and task allocation

It is not only about personalizing how employees work and what they learn, but also redefining the organizational structure and what work they engage in. Firstly, personalization for the future of employee engagement calls for differing levels of management. While some employees feel more engaged at work when their superiors are constantly managing over them and they engage in active reporting, others despise such micro managing and desire greater freedom and autonomy. Organizations need to gauge the pulse of every employee and manage them accordingly. Secondly, task allocation requires personalization as well. This means that organizations need to comprehensively understand the competencies and interests of every employee and divide work accordingly. Not only will this keep the employee more motivated and engaged, it will also augment the output, performance and productivity. 

Customizing the communication

Gone are the days of business leaders addressing the whole organization with the same stroke of paint. Today, with digital disruption, there is a possibility of customizing communication to make the whole narrative more personal for the employee to connect to. Organizations can start with simply addressing the employees with their names in every email, rather than simply writing, “Hi all”. Further, tweaking every communication to the context of every employee can go a long way into personalizing employee engagement. 

The bottom line here is that the future of employee engagement will thrive on hyper personalization of the whole experience. Thus, organizations need to scrap the one size fits all approach and personalize every step of the employee lifecycle. 

SUPER TIP: Engage with your teams wherever they work from by using the Employee Engagement feature by Superbeings.

Taking the First Step

Personalization of employee engagement practically requires a transformation of the entire organizational culture to ensure a consensus towards personalization. At the same time, organizations need to leverage the right technological tools and data points to ensure maximum effectiveness. For instance, collecting and analyzing employee data via different surveys, application forms etc, can be a good starting point to commence the personalization journey. To conclude, it is safe to say that there are a plethora of unexplored avenues for organizations to unveil and personalize their employee lifecycle to facilitate greater engagement, leading to better performance.

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Effective performance management is an integral part of the employee lifecycle and is as crucial to organizational success as talent acquisition and retention. Performance management encompasses monitoring and evaluating employee performance, productivity and efficiency. To contribute to organizational growth one needs to constantly improve one’s performance.  

In a fast growing company, time is the most valuable resource. Therefore, the need for having an effective performance management system becomes non-negotiable to measure output levels, both in terms of quantity and quality. Each employee must be able to deliver and improve efficiency to maximize the tight bandwidth. 

However, there are certain performance issues that employees and employers face at work that  make performance management challenging and hinder quick yet sustainable growth.

In this article, we will discuss the top 11 performance issues and obstacles to effective performance management that are common in fast growing companies and how to overcome the same. 

1. Lack of clarity in vision and objectives

One of the first performance issues which prevents effective performance management is a lack of clarity in what needs to be achieved. A vague vision and unclear objectives leads to situations where employees do not know what is expected of them and the leadership is unable to identify parameters to evaluate their performance. Without specific objectives, there will always be an ambiguity in what constitutes effective performance.

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Start with a clear vision and strong company values. Clearly and regularly communicate them along with long term and short term objectives. It is possible for the vision to be dynamic and change from time to time. In such cases, keep the team members updated on what the organization is progressing towards. Additionally, fast growing organizations must clearly indicate the role of each employee in achieving the vision and objectives to ensure transparency across all levels. When employees know the how and what of their roles, they perform better. 

2. Lack of well-defined work processes

The next employee performance issue that organizations come across is a lack of clarity on how the vision and objectives are to be achieved. This obstacle is especially true for fast growing organizations which lack clear processes and systems to achieve an identified goal. Often, employees have no institutional benchmark for a particular task and hence, face performance issues. 

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Leaders need to guide team members on how to navigate their way to the end and collectively brainstorm and ideate on the best path. While internal benchmarks might be lacking, fast growing companies can always take inspiration from external benchmarks and processes. Additionally, hypergrowth organizations can give their employees the freedom and autonomy to experiment the best way forward. 

3. No alignment between employee and leadership thinking

Another performance issue is a lack of alignment between employee and leadership thinking. This is again more relevant to fast growing companies, where a dynamism of vision and best practices leads to conflicting views between employees and the leadership. They may have different notions of what constitutes effective performance, and, thus, achieving the same will have different pathways and metrics for evaluation. 

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Involve employees across the organization in brainstorming and promote shared goal setting. Identify a middle way on what success will look like and how it can be achieved. The best way for fast growing organizations to mitigate this obstacle is by having effective OKRs which communicate the top objectives and associated key results to align expectations across. 

4. Lack of evaluation metrics and tools

Effective performance management and the path to dealing with performance issues requires mapping and measuring performance and productivity. However, most fast growing companies lack metrics and key performance indicators to measure the same. Often, they have an ad hoc approach and understanding of what constitutes good performance, which is neither inspirational nor uniform. 

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

It is important to have specifically defined KPIs and metrics to measure performance effectiveness. It is important to customize the KPIs to specific roles and tasks, instead of simply implementing those that appear on the first page of Google search. Since the work culture of fast growing companies is different from others, the KPIs must be customized and adapted accordingly to suit specific business needs.

5. Shortage of the right talent, skills, and resources

This performance issue is faced by almost all organizations as there is an overall shortage of skilled, qualified talent with the right attitude and work ethic. However, it is more apparent for hyper growth organizations which have financial constraints and limitations on how much they can spend along with a relatively lesser know brand name. Shortage of competent talent and resources leads to inefficiency in performance and other employee performance issues.

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Despite financial constraints, fast growing companies can deal with shortage of talent and resources by focusing on upskilling existing employees through intensive learning and development opportunities to address organizational needs. 

Furthermore, there needs to be a judicious and strategic approach to hiring and resource utilization based on top organizational priorities. It is a good idea to complement the compensation for employees with other benefits and rewards to attract the top talent as most millennials prefer autonomy, flexibility, and work culture over a fat paycheck. 

6. Inadequate rewards and recognition

Performance issues arise when employees feel their efforts are going unrecognized. Often, in the hustle of growing the businesses and 1000 other things that go on, fast growing organizations miss rewarding, acknowledging, and appreciating everything their employees do, especially when they go the extra mile. Many companies in the growth stage feel the financial limitations prevent them from rewarding exceptional performance. However, this leads to a lack of motivation, resulting in low levels of performance.

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Focus on showing gratitude to employees for everything they do. Most performance issues can be solved by creating incentives for higher outcomes. Rewards don’t have to be monetarily driven and can simply be Thank You notes, public acknowledgement and appreciation, gift vouchers, an extra day off, etc. The idea is to show that their performance and efforts are being recognized. 

7. Overlooking employee voice and opinion

Employee performance issues are intrinsically linked to overlooking what employees have to say. Most employees who join fast growing companies are driven by their purpose and passion and seek to make a difference. This requires organizations to hear what employees have to say, and when this does not happen, there is a performance disconnect.

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Focus on gauging employee pulse and opinion by leveraging different platforms. It is important to understand what employees have to say about the culture, factors contributing to performance problems and much more. If employee performance issues are to be addressed to facilitate effective performance management, understanding their side of the story is crucial to uncover the challenges as well as potential solutions. 

8. Lack of leadership commitment

Unless the leadership is committed to addressing performance issues and removing the obstacles to effective performance management, it is very difficult to move the needle. Often, leaders in fast growing companies are occupied with multiple things on their plate and find themselves stretched for time. Invariably, they are unable to understand the causes of performance problems and thus, unable to manage the same.

SUPER TIP: Check out which mistakes to avoid while leading a team in an organization.

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Leaders must set time aside to address employee performance issues and commit to their growth and development. They need to display their commitment by regularly communicating with team members, understanding the challenges, and identifying solutions collaboratively.

9. Inability to provide coaching and mentoring

Coaching and mentoring are integral to effective performance management. Due to lack of mentoring and guidance, employees find themselves lost in the way, leading to performance problems. Leaders and managers find themselves pressed for time and are often unable to see the return on investment with respect to coaching and mentoring. 

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

While companies in the growth stage may not have enough leaders to offer coaching and mentoring support to all their employees, leveraging external partnerships and technology to facilitate personalized 1:1 meetings can be a good option. The idea is to invest in the personal and professional development of employees to encourage and motivate them to bridge the performance gap. 

10. Poor communication and siloed working

Employee performance issues often stem from lack of transparent communication and a siloed approach to working. Adapting to new models of working, especially in the new normal, employees in hybrid organizations find it difficult to communicate with everyone on the team. This leads to miscommunication and prevents everyone from being on the same page. Consequently, these collaboration barriers result in declining performance. 

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Explore and experiment with unconventional forms of communicating with team members. Have an open door policy and share as much as possible. Promote a clear and transparent communication policy without hierarchies. Greet everyone in the team with a smile and have coffee/ virtual coffee breaks to bond beyond work. Finally, conduct icebreakers and different activities to facilitate communication and collaboration, which fall in your financial constraints, but are also effective and impactful. Using technology to keep employees engaged is often a useful and cost-effective solution.

11. Inability to offer feedback 

Finally, many fast growing companies lack the patience to allow their employees to make mistakes and offer feedback to help them improve. This often results in performance issues or rapid turnover. Either way, it is an obstacle to effective performance management. 

Solution for fast growing organizations: 

Encourage leaders to provide constructive and timely feedback to all their team members to help them learn from their mistakes. Share what team members can improve and also listen to their side of the story. Explain how small changes will not only improve their performance, but add to their professional development in the longer run.

Addressing performance issues: Essential guidance for fast growing organizations

Before we wrap up, here are a few best practices for fast growing organizations to address performance issues and facilitate effective performance management:

• Promote clarity of vision, goals, objectives, roadmap, expectations and anything that employees might have questions about to ensure they understand what they are performing for and why. 
  

• Leverage OKRs or Objectives and Key Results for strategic goal setting to help employees gauge how each objective will manifest itself and where they fall in the picture.
  

• Provide opportunities for growth. Most employees that join fast growing companies are driven not simply by monetary gains, but by a thirst to grow and make a difference.
  

• Have clear performance management metrics to help employees evaluate their performance on their own and offer adequate feedback to address the challenges and performance problems.
  

• Communicate as much as possible. Often lean teams of fast growing organizations work on different tangents, leading to different priorities. Step up the communication game to work like a well oiled machine and improve performance.
  

In addition to these best practices, it is important to collaborate with a platform that helps hyper growth companies create an empowering and high performing culture. Such a platform can help gauge employee pulse, set OKRs, measure performance regularly, facilitate manager development based on employee opinion and industry benchmarks and much more. Effective performance management by leveraging capabilities of an employee experience platform like SuperBeings can go a long way to attract the right talent, facilitate engagement and performance and reduce voluntary turnover. 

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Taking cue from a previous post we shared, organizational health is increasingly becoming a top priority for organizations, and rightly so. Organizational health is primarily an organization’s ability to function properly, change and adapt to ambiguity and grow along the way. Invariably, the value of organizational health lies in ensuring a competitive edge and ensuring its sustainability and scalability. While most organizations read the value of organizational success, it is equally important to measure and track it to ensure there is constant progress for the same. The objective of this piece is to guide organizations on what parameters should be used to measure organizational health. Additionally, how this tracking and monitoring aids strategy alignment for organizational health to make business sense. 

Measuring organizational health: The parameters

According to McKinsey, there are nine major parameters which form the basis of organizational health. Measuring organizational performance on these parameters can be a credible source for business leaders to gauge organizational health and align the best practices to improve the same. 

1. Direction

‍Organizational health largely depends on the direction of effort. Without a direction, efforts will be all over the place and not yield any concrete output. An organization’s direction is largely dependent on three components. Firstly, there should be a shared vision which refers to a common destination that everyone is progressing towards. Secondly, there needs to be strategic clarity, i.e. a clear route to the destination. Finally, there needs to be employee involvement in every step of the process. Invariably, for organizational health, leaders must constantly track and measure the level of clarity of goals and the route across the organization. 

2. Accountability‍

The next parameter which can be a measuring point for organizational health is accountability which refers to taking responsibility for one's actions. To measure the same, leaders need to start by tracking role clarity as to how well each team member understands what is expected of them. Next in line is having performance contracts and consequence management. Finally, a spirit of personal ownership and the extent to which employees come to the forefront without being asked to is a fair metric to track and measure organizational health. 

3. Coordination and control‍

The third parameter to measure organizational health revolves around how well those in leadership are able to navigate the route, coordinate and control the journey. This involves measuring and tracking the efficacy of your leadership on parameters like people performance reviews, operational, financial, risk management as well as maintenance of professional standards. The better the leadership is able to coordinate and control the team and other resources, the better is the organizational health.

4. External orientation‍

Next in line to measure the health of your organization is to track and monitor its external orientation which has five components. Start with being open to external ideas and tracking your customer focus, whether or not your organization is receptive towards customer demands. Follow it up with competitor insights. Next, it is important to judge your organization’s performance in building partnerships and collaborations, both in business as well as the community and government.

5. Leadership

‍Undoubtedly, leadership plays a key role in improving organizational health. To gauge the effectiveness of your leadership, an organization must judge its performance along the different leadership styles that exist. Only a perfect balance between them can spell success. Check the pulse of your leadership on authority i.e. if they are able to command respect, but at the same time if they are consultative and promote team participation and voice. At the same time, track your leadership on their support to their times and how they challenge themselves to reach higher goals. 

6. Innovation and learning‍

A healthy organization is always on the path to innovation and learning. To ensure that you are innovating and disrupting what you do, focus on top-down innovation that starts with the leadership and trickles to those who execute. As well as, there is a need to explore bottom-up innovation which starts with empowering your team members to innovate processes and practices. Additionally, track if your innovation is siloed and measure the extent of knowledge sharing. 

7. Capabilities‍

Invariably, the right capabilities have the potential to accelerate the journey to business success and organizational health. Measure your performance on talent acquisition in terms of how robust your hiring practices and results are. Additionally, judge your talent development practices to navigate employee development in the organizations. It is also important to measure the efficacy of your business process. Finally, to boost organizational health, leaders need to take a call on which capabilities to develop in house and which ones to outsource. A right decision is the key to a healthy organization.

8. Motivation‍

Capturing and measuring your team motivation is important to organizational health. Your performance on a few motivation boosters can help you track where you stand. Start with inculcating a strong value system. Follow it up with inspirational leaders, career opportunities, incentives, rewards and recognition. If you measure and track these components diligently, your score on motivation will hit the top mark.

9. Work environment‍

Finally, track your organizational health by monitoring and maintaining a healthy work environment free of toxic culture. Measure how open and trusting the environment is while being internally competitive. At the same time, how well do your fare on discipline and at the same time promote creative and entrepreneurship.  

Taking a stock of your organization’s performance on these nine parameters will give you a comprehensive picture of where you stand with respect to organizational health. As your performance starts soaring high on them, your organization is destined for success. 

Aligning organizational health with strategy

The secret to organizational health starts with acknowledging its importance and value. Next in line comes measuring and tracking major parameters which define where an organization stands. Once you have a fair idea of how well you are on the organizational health chart, there are four major approaches for organizations to choose from leverage to boost organizational health. 

1. Leader driven‍

A leader driven strategy to organizational health focuses on building an inspirational leadership to promote a positive work environment. By investing in high quality leaders, organizations yield credible results. Career opportunities become a ladder to coming out as better leaders which consequently lead to greater organizational success. 

2. Market focused‍

Market focused organizations pivot on customer centricity and competitor benchmarking. Their objective is to stand out in the market through constant innovation to deliver the best. Such organizations have clarity on the shared vision and a clear sense of direction and consistency for each step along the way with great responsiveness to market dynamics. Being able to keep up with market trends, these organizations remain in good stead and health.

3. Execution edge‍

The strategy of execution edge largely depends on augmenting efficiency by delivering better and faster at lower costs and reducing resource intensity. They constantly delve in innovation and knowledge sharing to ensure that creativity travels across the organization. The efficiency and efficacy of this approach yields strong organizational health.

4. Talent and knowledge core‍

Organizational leveraging the fourth strategy mainly play their talent and knowledge card. They fall back on different motivation boosters including financial incentives and other rewards to onboard and retain the best talent which consequently generates business and value for the organization. Their secret mantra to success lies in their investment in human resources and building their capabilities and knowledge.

Organizational health: What’s next?

To cut a long story short, organizational health is an imperative for organizations all across the globe. It is vital for organizations to tactfully measure their progress across the different parameters mentioned above. This can lead to determining their strengths and weaknesses. An understanding of the strengths can help organizations strategically choose the approach to success that best fits their combined capabilities. At the same time, organizations can leverage different platforms like SuperBeings to improve their performance on the parameters and proceed a step closer to better organizational health.

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Whether you are an HR professional or a line manager or a part of the executive leadership, organizational effectiveness would definitely mean something to you. If you take a close look, you will understand that while many consider it as a mere buzzword without any concrete meaning, some forward-looking organizations are treating it to gauge their success. Put simply, organizational effectiveness refers to how well and efficiently an organization is able to achieve its vision and goals. As a fast growing organization, you must focus on organizational effectiveness as it is essential to impact the bottom line, attract the top talent, as well as, survive and thrive amongst your competitors.

What is organizational effectiveness?

Before diverting any resources to this buzzword, you might want to answer the question on what is organizational effectiveness. In the simplest terms, organizational effectiveness refers to an organization’s ability to meet its objectives. As a growth driven organization, you are bound to have a certain set of goals that you seek to achieve by a combination of operations, processes and people. Organizational effectiveness is all about being able to realize the intended outcomes in the most effective and efficient manner. 

It is a comprehensive concept which takes into consideration the performance of each aspect that contributes to the running of an organization. Employee performance, managerial effectiveness, process efficiency, collaboration between different areas and organizational behavior, collectively contribute to organizational effectiveness. Organizations ranking high on all or most of these parameters and others tend to rank in the higher rungs of effectiveness, while those that face gaps in these, struggle with optimal levels of performance.

Importance of organizational effectiveness

You can understand the importance of organizational effectiveness by studying its direct correlation with company success. As the effectiveness quotient of your organization goes up, your ability to serve all the stakeholders better as well as make greater profits increases. Here are a few factors that illustrate why you should focus on organizational effectiveness: 

Cost and resource efficiency

Effectiveness is closely associated with efficiency across the organization. Organizational effectiveness will enable you to achieve maximum output with minimum input as the performance level is optimal. At the same time, effectiveness ensures that resources, beyond financial ones, like human resources, technology assets, etc., are used and allocated efficiently. Invariably, organizational effectiveness will help you promote efficient allocation, considerably reducing costs and disbursing limited resources to promote best results.

Greater employee engagement

An effective organization is defined by great performance across all verticals, in a holistic manner. This suggests that employees who work in such organizations are able to deliver top performance, without compromising on their wellness, leveraging the efficient processes and practices. Invariably, this augments their work experience and promotes engagement which results in greater loyalty, retention and commitment, further, accentuating their performance.

Better customer outcomes

Organizational effectiveness definitely takes into account augmenting the efficacy of customer service channels. An effective organization supports its customers in the most promising manner to create a pleasant experience. Right from its offerings to its service, organizational effectiveness plays a major role in helping you enhance customer outcomes.

Impact on bottom line

Finally, overall effectiveness has a direct impact on your organization’s bottom line. When all parts of your company work like a well-oiled machine, the profits are bound to soar high. The bottom line is positively impacted by decreased costs, greater employee productivity, happier customers and overall increased efficiency and efficacy.

Top 4 organizational effectiveness approaches

From a macro level, you might equate organizational effectiveness with cost reduction. However, this all encompassing concept requires following a strategic and comprehensive approach based on specific objectives and principles. Based on experience of most fast growing organizations, you can follow these 4 organizational effectiveness approaches to commence and accelerate your journey to success:

Goal attainment approach

The first approach to organizational effectiveness majorly focuses on the goals and objectives achieved. Put simply, according to the goal attainment approach, you should start by setting a set of goals and objectives that you seek to achieve through various efforts, i.e. achievement of goals is the reason for existence of the organization. Therefore, for this approach, you can gauge organizational effectiveness by measuring how well your organization is able to achieve its goals, mainly in the form of profits and efficiency. While this approach is important to ensure how effectively an organization reaches its goals, the dynamic nature of the goals and varying scope of long-term vs short-term goals, makes it slightly challenging to use this to assess organizational effectiveness.

Systems resource approach

The systems resource approach came as an answer to the challenges of the goal attainment approach. While the latter focuses only on the end, the systems resource approach takes into account the means to the end. To adopt this approach, you need to understand that success of any organization depends not only on the goal it achieves, but how it achieves the same. Therefore, there is focus on how effectively you are able to acquire the resources needed to achieve the desired goals or outcomes. Here, effectiveness is not only a result of goal attainment, but rather depends on resource acquisition. However, the challenge majorly lies in the dilemma that higher resource acquisition does not always translate to greater performance or success.

Strategic constituency approach

According to the strategic constituency, organizations survive and thrive in an environment where their success is dependent on a number of stakeholders. These include the employees, managers, shareholders, customers, partners, suppliers, etc. Organizational effectiveness is, thus, contingent to the company’s ability to satisfy these constituencies in its environment. Effectiveness depends on how well your organization is able to identify its various strategic constituencies and their expectations and, thus, navigate ways to achieve the same. At the same time, since each constituency has its own goals, power and influence, organizational effectiveness depends on the efficacy of trade-offs between one constituency over the other, in case of a conflict.

Competing values approach

The final approach takes into account the competing values and goals that your organization strives to achieve. At any given point of time, you may be conflicted on competing values which lead to different outcomes, all of which are necessary for organizational success. For instance, you might want to induce structure and discipline, but at the same time, might wish to promote autonomy, innovation and flexibility. Likewise, competing values come in the form of increasing profits and customer satisfaction vs augmenting employee wellness. Therefore, organizational effectiveness, according to this approach, assesses a company’s ability to strike the right balance between such competing values to create a win-win situation for all.

How to measure organizational effectiveness?

Like any other parameter defining company success, measuring organizational effectiveness is extremely important. Without proper metrics to measure effectiveness, you will continue to struggle with performance improvement because of a lack of monitoring and tracking. Following are the top 3 approaches that you can leverage to measure organizational effectiveness:

External resource approach

Using the external resource approach, you can measure organizational effectiveness on the basis of how well you are able to acquire, manage and control valuable resources from the external environment to power their operations. Focus on factors like price of inputs, relations with external stakeholders, quality of inputs and human resources to gauge effectiveness.

Internal resource approach

You can leverage the internal resource approach to measure organizational effectiveness on the basis of your company’s ability to constantly innovate with agility and responsiveness. Here, you need to focus on the decision making time, level of innovation and creativity, resilience, time to market, level of conflict or collaboration. If you perform well on such parameters you are likely to have higher levels of effectiveness.

Technical approach

Finally, the third approach you can use requires you to measure your organization’s ability to convert or transform the acquired resources into high quality final output by leveraging innovation, agility and responsiveness. The objective is to deliver improved and higher quality of products and services that yield greater customer satisfaction and stickiness. This approach majorly measures the increase in product quality, reduction in defects or rejects, better customer service, etc.

Top 6 components of organizational effectiveness

According to organizational development experts, there are six components of organizational effectiveness. You must focus on these components in a holistics manner as they are highly interdependent and an integrated and comprehensive approach to them has the potential to guarantee organizational effectiveness. 

Leadership

Leadership plays an integral role in promoting the effectiveness of an organization. Invariably, leaders have diverse roles to play right from creating a vision to ensuring the vision translates into reality with seamless processes and practices. You need to encourage and inspire your leadership to address three key questions to promote effectiveness. Firstly, the vision and values, i.e. the purpose of the organization and the unique value it brings to its customers. Secondly, the strategy and the approach, i.e. the most effective manner in which the organization will achieve its objectives and derive value. Thirdly, structure and alignment, i.e. balancing and aligning different components like strategy, technology, innovation, etc. to achieve desired results.

Communication

Communication is imperative to organizational effectiveness. You need to inculcate the thought across the organization that communication is not only about putting words to one’s thoughts. Strategic communication is all about ensuring that what is said clarifies the real intention behind it, and is not just stringing together some corporate buzzwords. You must spend your energy and efforts on creating a communication strategy for organizational effectiveness that focuses on clear messaging with no scope for ambiguity or excuses. Furthermore, you need to ensure that everyone is aligned on the shared vision as well as clear on what is expected out of them. Communication is not only about getting the message across, but also involves active listening and being receptive to feedback by diverse stakeholders.

Accountability

Accountability is a key parameter that ensures that a company is able to deliver on its promises and promote organizational effectiveness. You need to focus on building a culture of accountability, both individual and collective. This suggests that while each individual is responsible and accountable for a piece of task, collectively, the entire organization is accountable for the big picture. Accountability involves expectation alignment to ensure clarity in who is expected to do what. Additionally, as the custodian of culture, you need to leverage incentives, rewards, and appreciation to promote accountability and high levels of performance.

Delivery

Delivery primarily focuses on the experience that your organization is able to create for the end user or customers. Your effectiveness here largely depends on the satisfaction of your customers. It is not only about ensuring delivery, but also about promoting a seamless process of achieving the same. A simple and agile delivery process without too many steps is every customer’s dream. On the other hand, a delivery process fraught with complexities is likely to create a poor experience. Hence, for organizational effectiveness, you need to be agile and responsive to changing market conditions by improving your operations and processes to make delivery efficient and smooth.

Performance 

Organizational effectiveness is largely dependent on the human capital of a company. Therefore, you need to put in best efforts to recruit, develop and retain the top talent. Start your process by onboarding the right talent with a robust hiring process which not only assesses the talent on their technical and hard skills but ensures a match on all levels for the role. In addition, to ascertain an optimal level of performance, you need to provide your employees with regular and adequate development opportunities. These include upskilling and training as well as mentoring and guidance to promote holistic growth. Finally, you need to facilitate retention and loyalty of employees. This requires fostering a culture of appreciation and acknowledgement, which highlights the impact of employee contribution to the overall company success.

Measurement

Finally, the last component for organizational effectiveness requires you to focus on key metrics, performance indicators and trackers to measure and monitor business progress. Unless you closely measure each aspect of organizational performance with the right metrics, improving quality becomes difficult. You need to encourage your functional leaders to establish a set of standard metrics to measure performance at regular intervals and monitor the results. The measurement will enable you to gauge whether or not you are able to move the needle on important business parameters which collectively contribute to organizational effectiveness.

Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership

Transformational leadership has the power and potential to augment organizational effectiveness exponentially. By promoting effectiveness on the below five parameters, you can enhance overall organizational effectiveness:

Culture

Start by creating and nurturing a culture that promotes effectiveness across the organization. A culture of effectiveness refers to one where attributes like efficiency and efficacy are valued. For instance, adherence to timelines, prompt response, agility, etc., are most likely to develop a culture that reaps effectiveness.

Experience

Employee experience directly translates to organizational effectiveness. This suggests that the more pleasant and positive experience employees have, the greater performance they will deliver, contributing to increased effectiveness. Higher engagement from experience promotes motivation, retention, loyalty and commitment towards work, which collectively add to organizational effectiveness. Invariably, you need to focus on promoting a positive experience by providing authentic leadership, regular reinforcement and opportunities to grow and thrive.

Commitment

Your leaders must practice and display a commitment to organizational effectiveness. This involves not only having effectiveness practices and policies on paper, but also preaching them. When leaders constantly illustrate their commitment to effectiveness, it is likely to propagate in their teams, leading to a collective effort. At the same time, effectiveness must be practiced at all levels and across the organization. Be it hiring, or conducting meetings, or planning events, you always need to view it from an effectiveness lens.

Strategy

As a part of strategy and processes, you need to ingrain efficiency and effectiveness as a part of the core values that define the organization. This suggests that efficiency and effectiveness must become synonymous with the organization for both internal and external stakeholders. Effectiveness in strategy is also about ensuring that the path to achieving the company’s goals and objectives is clear, seamless and simple. Strategy for overall goal achievement must be crystal clear to ensure easy comprehension and implementation.

Tools and technology

Finally, your leaders must innovate and experiment with the latest tools and technologies. The idea is to stay abreast with the latest industry trends to maintain a competitive advantage. Leveraging the latest tools and technologies is the best bet to augment efficiency as well as stay relevant.

Organizational effectiveness: The starting point

Promoting organizational effectiveness is a collective responsibility which falls on the shoulders of all the stakeholders of a company. An integrated approach that seeks to understand and serve the interest of each of these stakeholders is key to achieving organizational effectiveness. However, working on all aspects at once can be chaotic and self-defeating. Therefore, you must consider starting your  journey to improve organizational effectiveness by focusing on the internal stakeholders, i.e. the employees and the leadership. In such a situation, partnering with platforms like SuperBeings that gauge and augment employee experience as well as offer avenues for leadership development is something to bet on. Invariably, organizational effectiveness is integral to company success and those who start early on in the race are most likely to reach the top.

Suggested reading:

Promoting Manager Effectiveness at Work

Ultimate Guide to Building Organizational Culture

Like what you read? Now see it in action in your team, book a free demo with our experts today!

Have you wondered what an organizational culture actually means? Apart from the vague descriptions you might have read online about how employees interact, organizational culture is a concept that includes a lot more than just how employees interact and operate.

Speaking in terms of a firm, the organizational culture would comprise the firm’s basic personality, or the essence of how its employees communicate and carry out various processes required to achieve collective goals. It is, nevertheless, an enigmatically complicated entity that keeps surviving and evolving as a result of shifts in leadership, strategy, and several other factors. 

It can also be defined as the self-sustaining pattern of behaviour that determines how things are done in an organization.

Culture is something that is difficult to define, yet everyone recognises it when they experience it. Similar to how you can get a sense of someone's personality by looking at them, you can determine the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what members wear, and so on.

Members of an organisation tend to pick up on the culture of that organisation sooner than one can ever imagine. 

Importance of having an Organizational Culture

Developing a winning corporate culture within your organization boosts recruitment efforts and increases retention rates. The types of candidates you attract and the personnel you keep have a direct impact on your company culture. 

And so, a positive corporate culture is just what you would need to attract the best job prospects and keep them on board as employees. It takes a lot of time and effort to build a winning company culture that reflects your beliefs and matches with your entire objective. It's a difficult, however not impossible task, and here’s why having a good organizational culture is so important:

Increases employee engagement levels

Employee engagement is defined as an employee's level of interest in, motivation for, and connection to their work and company. And so, it's no surprise that high levels of employee engagement are associated with winning business cultures.

Strong corporate cultures provide employees with a reason to stick around and to do so with zeal. Employees with a winning culture establish strong bonds with their peers, company, and position, improving their work experience and increasing their engagement.

Reflects your organization’s core values

Your company's values and beliefs, as well as the underlying assumptions held by employees in your organization, form the foundation of your culture.

In a nutshell, your company's basic principles are brought to life through your organisational culture.

Helps to increase employee satisfaction and productivity

Your organization’s culture has a bigger impact than you know, on employee satisfaction and engagement. If your corporate culture values teamwork but a person prefers to work alone, they are unlikely to be satisfied at your organisation. 

While you won't be able to please everyone, you may attempt to create a company culture that balances your employees' individual requirements while also aligning with your organization's objectives. Thus, your staff will show their appreciation by increasing their productivity and performance.

Scope for improved recruitment efforts

Studies show that organizations that provide a favourable candidate experience enhance the quality of their hiring by 70%. You can't hide your company culture from job seekers; they'll be able to get a sense of it almost instantly and use it to make a decision. Thus it is important to prioritize developing a corporate culture that promotes a strong and compelling brand image to prevent losing top prospects' attention.

Understanding and developing organizational culture

In most cases, leaders do have a strong awareness of their organization's culture. However, they simply haven't made that sense conscious enough to be able to learn from and lead within the culture effectively.

Diverse people within the same organisation may have different perspectives about the company's culture. This is especially true when it comes to the perspectives of the organization's top and bottom levels.

Here are four elements to understanding your company's culture, as well as the criteria for determining whether it needs to change. 

Recognize that your company does have a culture

Every firm, whether consciously or unintentionally created, has a culture. This culture comprises the set of values, goals, ethics, and expectations that guide and affect employee conduct.

If you want to create a certain type of culture, it's not enough to just say so. To build a roadmap to achieve those changes, you must first figure out what present habits need to change. It is thus critical to first establish your current corporate culture before attempting to change it.

Evaluate the Priorities of Your Business

It is crucial to analyze your company's priorities if you want to learn more about your culture. These objectives and initiatives show what your company values and what it does not ,both explicitly and implicitly.

Inquire about the culture of the company

The behaviours that are encouraged, tolerated, and discouraged in your workplace make up your company culture. It's best to go straight to the source, i.e., your employees. This will help you figure out what kind of people make up your organization. Consider ways in which you can gather input on which behaviours are now beneficial to the company and which should be avoided or altered in order to elevate your firm.

SUPER TIP - If you're interested in engaging with your team to understand your knowledge of your organisation's culture, here's something to help you start with.

Types of organizational culture 

Every organization is different, and all of them have a unique culture to organize groups of people. Adopting a culture that matches your people and your goals- is the only right way out to understanding and developing an organizational culture.

Now when it comes to types, there are over five to eight types of organizational culture, out of which only a few are amongst the popular ones. They are as follows:

The Clan Culture

A clan culture is people-focused in the sense that the company feels like one big happy family. This culture follows the motto of being together throughout everything. Clan culture comprises a highly collaborative work environment  that is super flexible where every individual is valued and communication is a top priority.

Market Culture

Market culture mainly believes in competition and growth, where losing isn't considered as an option. These are organisations that are more concerned with external success, i.e., profitability  than with internal contentment.

Everything is measured against the bottom line; each position has a goal that is aligned with the company's overall goal, and employees and leadership roles are frequently separated by several degrees. 

Hierarchy Culture

Companies with hierarchical cultures stick to the traditional business structure and value quality over quantity. These are businesses that place a strong emphasis on internal organisation, with a clear chain of command and various management tiers that separate employees from executives. Employees are typically required to obey a dress code in addition to a rigid structure. Hierarchy cultures have a set of rules to follow, making them predictable and risk-averse.

Adhocracy culture

Adhocracy cultures are rooted in innovation and risk taking and go by the motto- risk it to get the biscuit. These are the businesses that are at the forefront of their fields, looking to produce the next great thing before anybody else has even begun to ask the appropriate questions. They must take risks in order to do so. Individuality is valued in adhocracy cultures because employees are encouraged to think creatively and contribute their ideas.

10 Amazing organizational culture examples

A good company culture not only consists of one or a combination of the above mentioned types, but should also be something that stands out from one’s competition. 

It is not something that can be achieved within a snap of a finger, but takes a considerable amount of time, understanding and planning to emerge as an organization with a great culture where employees are productive, happy and satisfied.

Here are a few examples of organizations with commendable culture to help you take inspiration from:

#1 Of course, Google

Google is known for being an excellent employer that has pioneered many of the perks and advantages that startups are now known for. Google's employees are a hardworking, talented, and an enthusiastic bunch.

For its employees, Google's corporate culture is a treasure trove of perks and bonuses. Free meals, employee vacations and parties, cash bonuses, open speeches by high-level executives, employee recognition, gyms, and a pet-friendly atmosphere are all available at Google. It's no surprise that Google's company culture is the gold standard by which all other IT firms are judged.

#2 Zoom cares not only about connecting users, but its employees as well!

The video conferencing technology company -Zoom is known for its amazing culture, and with good reason: their emphasis on people. The business has a reputation for genuinely caring about its employees. Zoom even encourages employees to bring loved ones to work so that teammates and coworkers can meet the individuals who work behind the scenes, who inspire them, and for whom they work.

#3 Everyone’s favourite digital streaming platform: Netflix

Netflix's corporate culture is based on the principle of "people over process." They have a set of ideals in which they strongly believe and which they want their employees to live out in their job.

The foundation of the organisation is a strong sense of loyalty and ownership. Their goal is to pervade the workforce with their values and philosophies in order to motivate and urge people to support innovation in order to achieve higher growth.

#4 Zappos

Zappos' culture is now well-established and well-known. They concentrate on hiring to keep things going. The goal of the hiring process is to discover people who share the company's values. Zappos devotes a significant amount of time and resources to employee team building and culture promotion. They want every employee to embody the company's principles.Customers can even tell that Zappos staff are happy.

#5 DHL

DHL is unique in how it benefits from its dynamic, multicultural environment. With a variety of programmes, such as the unique integrated learning platform that fosters talent development, the organisation looks after its employees throughout their careers.

Another pillar is workplace wellness, which includes annual events and long-term activities to protect employee health.

#6 LinkedIn

LinkedIn was even on Glassdoor's 2020 Best Places to Work list, but two characteristics aren't mentioned enough: devotion to people and a focus on five principles: transformation, integrity, collaboration, humour, and results.

#7 Hubspot

Hubspot has appeared on numerous best-of lists. It does not end here. The marketing, sales, and service software firm is ranked first on this list of the finest places to work. The explanation for this is simple: Hubspot's company culture revolves upon its people.

#8 Warby Parker: the specialists for glasses

Warby Parker has been creating and selling prescription glasses online for over a decade now. Warby Parker's company culture inspires "culture crushes," run by a team dedicated to culture, making it one amongst the several  reasons for the company's success. Warby Parker provides its employees with a positive work environment by organising enjoyable meals, events, and programmes, always ensuring that there is an impending event to look forward to.

#9 Every child’s favorite: Pixar

How does a corporation maintain such a high level of creativity and excellence at the same time? Well. we would never really know. At Pixar, everything is a work of art and employees are encouraged to be their true “creative” self. The essential ideals of the animation studio inspire the entire culture. 

Pixar believes that if you want to be creative, you must be innovative in everything you do. This can even be seen throughout Pixar, especially in the design of the company's "cubicles," which are sometimes shaped like cute little huts.

#10 Twitter: home for happy and fulfilled employees‍

Twitter employees can't get enough of the company's culture!  Rooftop meetings, amicable coworkers, and a team-oriented workplace where everyone is motivated by the company's goals have prompted this acclaim. 

It's impossible to beat having team members that are pleasant and friendly to one another, as well as excellent at and enthusiastic about what they do. There is no programme, activity, or set of regulations that can compare to having happy and pleased employees who believe their work counts.

You would notice that most of the organizations read about a while ago, have similar perks and bonuses, but keep in mind that these do not entirely determine your organization’s culture. The way employees are treated, as well as the level of ownership and trust they are given, is the key aspect of any and every company culture.

Suggested Reading -

Understanding Organizational Health: A Guide for Success

Decoding Employee Engagement with Inclusion and Diversity

Take your employee experience to new heights with our customizable employee engagement module. Book a free demo today!

If measuring and improving performance is a key priority for an organization, comparing OKR vs KPI is a popular topic for discussion. Most organizations believe that one can be replaced with the other and the two are mutually exclusive. However, on a closer look it becomes clear that despite overlap, OKR and KPI are quite different in what they seek to achieve and how they seek to achieve it. 

While the broad focus for both of them is setting goals and measuring results, the approach, outcomes, and applicability are quite different. Through the course of this blog, we will focus on comparing OKR vs KPI by understanding the difference, how they work together, best practices to set OKRs and KPIs as well as a few top examples.

OKR vs KPI: What is the difference?

As a first step, let’s deconstruct the terms and undertake a comparison of OKR vs KPI and then move on to understanding the difference between the two.

What is OKR: OKR Definition

Wondering what is an OKR? Well, OKR is a popular acronym for Objectives and Key Results, that seeks to provide organizations with a strategic framework focused on goal-setting and achievement. Going by the term itself, the meaning of OKR consists of two major activities. 

The first one entails setting objectives or what an organization seeks to achieve. The second one revolves around key results, which involves identifying key indicators that determine whether or not an organization has been able to achieve its objectives. OKRs are often accompanied by an approach or initiative which seeks to guide the journey from objectives to key results. 

What is KPI: KPI Definition

In our discussion of OKR vs KPI, like OKR, KPI is also an acronym, which when expanded corresponds to Key Performance Indicators focused on performance measurement. As the name suggests, KPIs seek to measure the success of a particular task or project. 

KPIs generally fall within a framework of where an organization is going and helps gauge how effective and efficient it is in its journey. In short, KPIs focus on evaluating the performance of an organization towards its goals. 

Differentiating OKR vs KPI

While OKRs and KPIs both seek to accelerate an organization’s journey towards success and growth, each one plays a distinct and important role. Let’s dive deep into comparing OKR vs KPI.

First, OKR is more of a goal-setting framework which helps organizations determine what needs to be done and how, while KPIs are focused on performance evaluation in the journey towards achievement of those goals. This suggests that KPIs enable organizations to measure their performance and identify gaps and challenges in the same. OKRs, on the other hand, empower organizations to set objectives to bridge those gaps and explore what needs to be changed, aligned, and altered to achieve the same. 

Second, a comparison of OKR vs KPI indicates that by nature and scope, KPIs are sustainable over time and don’t change on a regular basis. Whereas, OKRs often have a short life and keep transforming regularly. This is majorly because KPIs are mostly standardized and relevant for almost all types of goals. However, objectives and related key results are constantly re-evaluated and adapted based on business priorities. Furthermore, as one objective is achieved, the existing OKRs reach their pinnacle and new OKRs are set. 

Third, when comparing OKR vs KPI, a key difference appears in how they are seen by employees in the organization. For most employees, OKRs define what are the important company goals and what each one can do to achieve the same. On the other hand, KPIs help employees evaluate their productivity, enhance accountability and help create benchmarks for overall performance mapping. OKRs are generally aspirational and dynamic in nature, while KPIs are more achievable and closer to the ground. 

In a nutshell, it is the intention behind the process that primarily sets OKRs and KPIs apart. OKRs help organizations determine what they seek to achieve and what success will look like, while KPIs highlight how well they are faring in their journey to success. 

Top examples for OKR and  KPI 

With a comprehensive understanding of the difference between OKR and KPI, we should now have a look at a few examples to comprehend how the two manifest in real-world situations.

Examples of OKRs

Focused on identifying areas of improvement, setting goals against each, and defining expected results is what OKRs seek to determine. OKRs can be team specific or applicable to the organization as a whole. Some of the top OKP examples include:

Example 1

Objective: Increase company’s bottom line

Key result 1: Increase revenue by 50%

Key result 2:  Decrease cost/ expenditure by 20%

Initiative 1: Focus on marketing and outreach

Initiative 2: Create a healthy sales funnel

Example 2

Objective: Increase customer engagement and satisfaction

Key result 1: Increase customer stickiness by 30%

Key result 2: Increase net promoter score from 80 to 90

Initiative 1: Create a seamless user experience

Initiative 2: Offer personalized service

Examples of KPIs 

As a metric to gauge the level of performance, KPIs will be distinct and personal for each team or department within an organization. Some of the most common KPIs include:

Example 1

Human resources team

1. Voluntary turnover rate
2. Engagement quotient
3. Hiring time

Example 2

Sales department

1. Customer lifetime value
2. Sales call-conversion rate
3. Revenue

How do OKRs and KPIs work together?

Focusing on just one of the two key performance management and enhancement approaches will seldom result in unparalleled growth and success. Therefore, organizations need to adopt a holistic view and leverage the complementary nature of OKR vs KPI. There are several ways in which OKRs and KPIs can work together to facilitate organizational success. 

KPIs are a great starting point for organizations to understand where they are going wrong. It helps measure performance against a vetted benchmark and gauge if there is any gap. While organizations have this data and know what is going well and where improvement is needed, without OKRs, the improvements can seldom be achieved. 

OKRs, thus, close the loop by taking the identified areas of improvement as base, creating an objective, key intended results, and initiatives to achieve the same. Therefore, KPIs help in identifying problem areas and OKRs enable organizations to create measurable outcomes to bridge the gaps. 

Thus, there are two ways in which the comparison of OKR vs KPI transforms into a meaningful relationship. 

Firstly, if an organization is unable to meet its KPI targets, it can set OKRs to work on specific areas of improvement. 

Secondly, an organization seeking to achieve an ambitious target can fall back on OKRs to guide the way and unlock its potential. 

Tracking and working on KPIs and OKRs together is integral for organizations to create a bigger picture and focus on optimizing performance at every level and improve on every step of the way. 

OKR vs KPI: Best practices

When creating OKRs and KPIs, it is extremely important to follow some of the best practices to ensure maximum effectiveness. 

When creating OKRs, there should be an alignment between the department, team, and organizational goals and objectives. While the specifics for each will be different, they must converge on a macro level. 

Furthermore, it is important to have at least 2-5 key result areas and initiatives for each objective. Simply gauging the success of an objective with one result will seldom suffice. Organizations must strive to create aspirational OKRs, even if the path is unclear in the beginning. 

On the KPIs front, it is important to be as specific as possible. The target KPIs must be backed by industry standards and evidence to generate confidence. This reflects the need to have KPIs that are attainable. 

Finally, the KPIs should be actionable. The idea behind having KPIs is to measure and improve performance. However, if a KPI is unable to generate insights which can be the basis for action, their purpose is defeated. 

What is common to the best practices in the OKR vs KPI debate is that both need to be communicated clearly and transparently to everyone. Unless employees understand what they seek to achieve, how they seek to achieve it, what success looks like, and how performance will be measured, even the best KPIs and OKRs will not bear fruit. 

OKR vs KPI: Getting started with SuperBeings

Setting the right OKRs and KPIs can help organizations ensure that everyone is working in the same direction. In a race between OKR vs KPI, collaboration with SuperBeings can help magnify the impact. While OKRs can help in aligning the team members to a shared goal, SuperBeings helps ensure that the OKR lifecycle is seamless. With SuperBeings, organizations can leverage the value of OKRs to anticipate impending risks, realign strategy, and measure indicators and metrics which matter the most. 

With an understanding of the importance of OKRs and KPIs, we empower organizations to make their objectives the center of attention with efforts, directing efforts from all corners towards achieving the intended results. This results in frictionless team work, leading to greater levels of engagement, collaboration and satisfaction. 

SuperBeings, thus, enables organizations to not only work towards a collective mission with streamlined tracking and achievement of goals, but also augments employee experience in the process. Make OKRs a force multiplier with SuperBeings, request early access today!

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How to write OKRs for sales team

15 OKR writing mistakes to avoid

Take your employee experience to new heights with our customizable employee engagement module. Book a free demo today!

OKR or Objectives and Key Results is an effective goal setting framework for organizations to achieve their business aspirations. The major merit to OKRs comes from their ability to help team members achieve shared goals in a time bound and measurable manner. It enables organizations to align business objectives with operational tasks and ensure that the top priorities don’t drift to the back seat as business as usual takes over. 

However, setting OKRs comes with its own set of challenges and OKR mistakes that organizations must avoid. 

In this blog, we will discuss — 

• Steps to OKR goal setting which are likely to yield maximum impact, and 
• 15 common OKR mistakes with practices to avoid them.

OKR Goal Setting: Structure of OKRs

OKRs consist of two components, Objectives and key results. Objectives are what the organization seeks to achieve, as a top priority, the overarching vision. While key results focus on how the intended outcome will look like. 

Setting OKRs effectively involves creating an objective which is ambitious as well as qualitative in nature. Starting with quarterly objectives can be effective. It will allow organizations time to see subtle signs of progress, but at the same time, flexibility to realign in case of a disconnect. 

Key results, on the other hand, must be measurable and quantitative. Without a data point attached to the key results, it is extremely difficult to gauge whether or not the objective has been met. 

Working with the right structure can help avoid OKR mistakes. Here is a quick example of the structure for OKR goal setting along with the key considerations to keep in mind:

Objective: Improve employee engagement (ambitious)

Key Result 1: Increase employee satisfaction to 80% (measurable and quantitative)

Key Result 2: Increase employee participation by 50% (measurable and quantitative)

Key Result 3: Decrease voluntary turnover by 50% (measurable and quantitative)

To learn how to set the right OKRs, read this step-by-step guide.

Common OKR Mistakes to Avoid

With an understanding of the benefits of objectives and key results and the structure for effective OKR goal setting, let’s turn to the 15 common OKR mistakes that organizations make and how to fix them based on industry research and best practices: 

1. Disproportionate numbers of OKRs

Many organizations fall prey to the common OKR mistake of setting a disproportionate number of OKRs. There are several facets to this. First, there might be too many objectives that the key priorities get lost. Second, organizations tend to link only one key result to each objective, which may not be sufficient to achieve the objectives.

How to fix this: Focus on setting no more than 3-5 objectives per department or team per quarter. Similarly, having 2-4 key results for each objective is a good starting point. This will not overwhelm team members about the amount of work to be done as well as ensure that organizational priorities are sacrosanct. 

2. Creating too high or too low objectives

While it is important to have objectives that are ambitious, having unrealistic ones that cannot be achieved is one of the most common OKR mistakes. Unachievable objectives demotivate employees instead of challenging them. On the flip side, having very low hanging fruits as objectives lead to a situation where they are not challenging or stimulating enough to encourage employees to push their boundaries. Either way, the OKRs lose significance and fail to create impact. This also leads to sandbagging and underutilization of available resources.

How to fix this: Adopt an incremental approach. Start with audacious but realistic goals. Check your team’s performance and adjust accordingly.

3. Not assigning accountability

Lack of accountability is one of the major reasons why some OKRs fail. In the absence of direct accountability, there is an environment of finger pointing and shifting the blame, without any adequate results on the table.

How to fix this: Have a point person who will be directly responsible for measuring and sharing the efficacy and the effectiveness of the OKRs and share whether or not the team is on track with what was envisioned. When setting OKRs, always designate who will be accountable and responsible to track the same. 

4. Low value objectives

OKRs must contribute directly to the business growth and strategy. Good OKRs directly impact the bottom line — end-user experience and profitability. Low-value OKRs, even when fully achieved, fail to make any substantial difference, leading to wastage of valuable resources.

How to fix this: Set OKRs thoughtfully. Rephrase OKRs to focus on the tangible benefit to create a sense of urgency. De-prioritize goals that do not contribute to the primary objective of the company.

5. Setting vague and open ended OKRs

Having OKRs which are vague and not aligned to any specific measurable outcomes tend to be ineffective. This is especially true for the key results. One of the most common OKR mistakes is not having a measurable figure attached to the key results to gauge whether or not the objective has been achieved. 

How to fix this: Adopting the SMART goals framework can go a long way to ensuring that the OKRs are very specific and can be measured in a time bound manner.

For instance, instead of simply saying increase customer NPS, make it specific as increase customer NPS to 9 in 5 months. 

6. Focusing on a top-down approach

It is true that most OKRs will come from the senior leadership following a top-down approach to be implemented by others in the team. However, making this an exclusive approach is a big mistake. Top-down OKRs often limit creativity and autonomy leading to decreased motivation and negatively impact the performance overall. It is a common OKR mistake to have brainstorming in silos. 

How to fix this: Adopt a balanced approach of top-down and bottom-up when it comes to setting OKRs. Employees need to be seen as organizational assets who have a fair understanding of business needs and priorities. Therefore, giving them a voice in the process of OKR goal setting can go a long way into augmenting engagement and making it a collaborative process. This also aligns business strategy with tactics and day-to-day operations.

7. Inability to track progress

Don’t set OKRs and forget. Without tracking progress, undertaking corrective action and realigning priorities becomes difficult. This leads to negligible impact to the overall business. 

How to fix this: Have a weekly tracker to gauge the progress made on each OKR. Have regular conversations on the results achieved. It is a good idea to break the ultimate results into smaller percent size portions which can be aimed to be achieved and tracked on a regular basis. 

8. Confusing OKRs with daily tasks

OKRs are not to-do lists. It is important to understand that daily tasks can be many and are generally a way to achieve the objectives and key results. Treating OKRs as a task checklist for everything that needs to be done is one of the most common OKR mistakes.

How to fix this: It is important to differentiate between the top objectives from the tasks and smaller milestones that come along the way of achieving the objective. Listing down initiatives to be taken for each key result can eliminate the confusion.

9. Using OKR for performance evaluation

Many managers commit the mistake of using OKRs as a performance evaluation tool to gauge how well their team members have been able to achieve what is expected out of them. Since performance evaluation is often linked to compensation and benefits, employees will push conversations towards setting lower objectives, which defeats the purpose. As OKRs are by nature ambitious, having a 70-80% achievement ratio of objectives is a good sign of progress. If OKRs are 100% achieved, objectives may not be ambitious enough to capitalize on the team members’ strengths. 

How to fix this: Use the OKR framework as a management tool to encourage employees to push their boundaries. OKRs need to be aspirational for employees to put their thinking hats on and innovate, rather than a goal to achieve to reach the next promotion level.

10. Replicating industry practices blindly

Taking inspiration from industry practices is a good idea. However, replicating them without any contextual understanding is self-defeating. As the whole OKR framework gained momentum with Google’s success and explosive growth, organizations tend to replicate the Google way without any customization. Naturally, the results are often skewed.

How to fix this: Learn from the best practices of others and then customize them to fit your organization’s context. Instead of implementing blindly, it is important to understand the rationale for each activity and then align those with specific business priorities. To avoid this OKR mistake, organizations must understand the guiding principles behind successful OKRs, have clear business goals, and then implement OKRs according to their unique needs. 

11. Having unrealistic expectations

Many organizations expect to see results within weeks of setting their objectives. They seek instant results without giving the team members the room to work on them and achieve the desired outcomes. This need for instant gratification leads to frustration and pushes leaders to give up too quickly and is a very common OKR mistake.

How to fix this: Be patient and give the OKRs time to show their impact. As with any new process, the team will take some time to implement OKRs, and get used to them. The results will likely be visible from the third or the fourth cycle. Do not quit and dismiss OKRs too early. Engage with OKR experts to understand their gestation period and refine the process along the way. 

12. Focusing on short term goals

OKRs need to be forward looking and ambitious. Focusing on very short term goals as objectives will compromise their impact and importance. OKRs are generally long term and are achieved over time. 

How to fix this: Segregate your OKRs into three categories to have the perfect balance between strategy and execution. 

• Strategic OKRs — long-term, usually annual, business OKRs
• Tactical OKRs — mid-term, usually quarterly, team OKRs
• Operational OKRs — near term, usually weekly, team & individual OKRs
  

13. Lack of communication about OKRs

Many organizations master the art of setting OKRs in the best and most effective manner, yet in the absence of clear effective communication are unable to achieve the expected results. Unless everyone is on the same page when it comes to the objectives and expected key results, it is very difficult to move the needle in the right direction consistently.

How to fix this: Once the OKRs are set, communicate them clearly to everyone in the team and specify the role of each and everyone involved. Creating OKRs in silos and expecting everyone to perform their roles doesn’t make sense. Setting OKRs must be a collaborative and communicative process. 

14. Inability to offer adequate resources

Achieving any objective that has the potential to create business value requires adequate resources. However, often organizations fail to provide their teams with the right resources. This leads to an inability to meet the expectations, causing frustration and demotivation. 

How to fix this: Before implementing any OKR, take an honest inventory of the resources — internal and external — that will be required to achieve them. Check whether or not the same can be provided to the employees. If not, it might be a good idea to relook at the OKRs and redefine them in case of a disconnect. 

15. Missing the opportunity to reinvent

It is common for organizations to blindly go after the objectives set months ago despite changing business requirements. Failing to reinvent as and when needed can lead to potential loss of revenue and market share. 

How to fix this: Organizations must be agile in setting OKRs and be ready to reinvent them as circumstances change. At the same time, when an objective has been achieved, it needs to be replaced with a new one to avoid wastage of resources.

Larry Page, the former CEO of Alphabet  and co-founder of Google, publicly claimed in John Doerr’s book “Measure What Matters” that — 

OKRs have helped lead us to 10x growth, many times over. They’ve helped make our crazily bold mission of 'organizing the world’s information' perhaps even achievable. They've kept me and the rest of the company on time and on track when it mattered the most.

To learn how to use OKRs for 10x growth in your company too, keep reading!

What is an OKR?

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results (OKR), a popular leadership tool for setting, distributing, and monitoring short and long term goals and results that align organizational purpose with individual targets across all levels. OKRs are frequently set, regularly tracked, and modified periodically. There are several aspects of OKRs that organizations need to understand to facilitate impact. This guide will help you navigate through several resources on the entire OKR lifecycle. 

Components of OKRs

Before we move on to the different considerations of OKRs, let’s quickly understand the 3 key components of any OKR which you must refer to when writing OKRs for your organization. John Doerr, one of the most prominent venture capitalists, who introduced Google to OKRs, uses a simple formula for setting Objectives and Key Results— 

Typically, an OKR framework must have 3 parts to be effective — an objective, 3-4 key results, and key initiatives (optional).

1. Objectives (where do I want to go?)

The objectives constitute the qualitative goals to be achieved on organizational, team, and/or individual levels. Objectives must be aspirational, time-bound, easily understood, actionable, and qualitative.

2. Key Results (how to ensure I am getting there?)

Each key objective must be complemented with 3-4 clearly defined measurable results that are aspirational but achievable and quantifiable. Key results determine whether an objective has been achieved or not. Key results can be characterized by their levels of difficulty, thus acting as a milestone.

For example, 

Key result 1: Quantifiable target that can be achieved with 90% certainty.

Key result 2: Quantifiable target that can be achieved with 50% certainty.

Key result 3: Quantifiable target that can be achieved with 25% certainty.

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Former Yahoo CEO Merissa Mayer defines key results by their quantifiability —  “It’s not a Key Result unless it has a number.”

3. Initiatives (how to get there?)

The third component is the initiative or projects which constitutes a series of tasks or actions that you need to undertake to reach where you want to go. This clearly illustrates the how to compliment your why of objectives.

Setting OKRs and OKR implementation

Now that you understand the importance of OKRs for your organization, it is time to explore how you can leverage them for growth. You need to adopt a robust process for setting OKRs as well as for smooth OKR implementation. Your plan or process should focus on:

• Accountability, where you have one person responsible for implementing and managing OKRs — known as OKR Master or OKR Champion or OKR Ambassador
• Revision, with a system (preferably a software or tool) in place that helps you shift your OKRs as and when needed, generally mid-quarter
• Cadence, where company-wide goals usually take an annual approach, while team / departmental goals require quarterly cadence to remain effective in an agile environment.

How to create a Robust OKR Process: Read this article, for a detailed understanding on OKR cycle, which includes tips on:

1. Setting OKRs effectively

To illustrate top goals and priorities, based on collective brainstorming which are ambitious yet achievable, measurable and validate them too. 

OKR Setting Template: Refer to this template for setting OKRs effectively.

2. Communicating OKRs across the Organization

Explicitly communicate/ roll out your OKRs and initiatives to highlight the responsibility of each team member and build organization-wide visibility using the right platforms. 

3. OKR implementation to drive alignment

Start OKR implementation and the onboarding process with an OKR training module and make it easy to access OKRs, giving your employees real time visibility.

OKR Implementation Template: Use this template for more understanding

4. Robust Check-ins for OKR Tracking

Ensure regular check-ins for tracking OKRs by setting a regular cadence, focusing on achievement, blockers/enablers, using automated OKR progress reports, AI recommendations, etc. 

OKR Tracking Template: Use this template for tracking OKRs with efficacy.

Run Successful Weekly OKR Check-ins and Quarterly OKR check-ins: Check out these actionable Playbooks to improve your check-in process immediately

5. Grading OKRs for Success

Set regular review cycles with clear data points to facilitate retrospective OKR analysis and decide which OKRs need to be continued for the next OKR cycle and create new ones.

OKR Grading Template: Use this grading template for grading OKRs for your organization.

Types of OKRs

Prior to moving to the next section on OKR review, here is a quick snapshot of how you can set different levels of OKRs:

1. Company OKRs

Define the company-wide vision and break company strategy down to company OKRs i.e. 3-4 specific targets your company must achieve within the next year.

Include representatives from all levels while setting company OKRs to help the management understand what resources and support their employees need to achieve those OKRs on time. 

2. Team OKRs

Team OKRs are set quarterly by team managers with direct inputs from team members and other teams’ leaders. Not every company-wide OKR needs to be reflected in every team’s OKRs. 

Team OKRs should help all employees stay focused on their goals despite the distraction of urgent, impromptu work needs. 

Strategic Goal Alignment: How to Align Teams Using OKRs: Check out this article for to understand how to facilitate team OKR alignment.  

3. Individual OKRs

Individual OKRs are usually the initiatives that each individual team member must complete Weekly. Individual OKRs are only for high priority tasks and should not exceed 3, and must not become another checklists. 

OKR review

Simply setting and implementing OKRs is not enough, you need to constantly ensure OKR review to track your progress against each objective and key result and eventually, identify enablers and blockers to accelerate progress. 

How to Run a Successful OKR Progress Review: Read this article to identify all the necessary steps and best practices for OKR review. It includes:

- Three cycles, of OKRs i.e. 

1. ‍Weekly to maintain continuity and encourage real time updates
2. ‍Quarterly to get a more expansive view on performance progress 
3. ‍Annually to facilitate OKR grading and setting new OKRs

- Insights on how to prepare for different OKR review cycle for before, during and after the meeting

- Top 15 questions to ask during OKR review meetings

OKR examples

To help you get a practical understanding of what OKRs look like, we have compiled a few OKR examples. Since different teams have different OKRs, this quick snapshot captures broad guidelines for several business verticals, which can be refined for others as well.

Sales OKR Example: How to Write OKRs for Sales Team: This article will help you set specific OKRs for the sales team by focusing on:

• How to write OKRs for sales team, with 6 steps
• Top sales OKR examples for different stages of the sales cycle including lead generation, nurturing, closure and post sales

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OKR software

Getting started with OKRs on your own can be daunting at first. With multiple priorities around you, it is best to partner with some OKR software which can help you automate processes, build organization-wide OKR visibility, drive accountability, track real-time progress and much more. However, you are bound to have several apprehensions about OKR software if you are just starting. 

To start with, you need to create buy-in for OKR software. This involves creating a business case. 

Should Your Business Invest in OKR Software? See the ROI: This article details the business impact of OKR software by helping you understand the potential return on investment. Explore the article to understand:

• The ROI of Goal Management using OKRs (real statistics of org-wide improvement)
• How an OKR software makes a difference
• How you can calculate the ROI of an OKR software

It will help you gauge the qualitative and quantitative aspects of your return on investment and enable you to take your first step towards partnering with an OKR software.

Once you have secured leadership buy-in, the next is following a process driven approach to choose the right OKR software. You need to make sure that the OKR software you choose is a perfect fit for not only your current needs, but can also help you in the future. 

OKR Software: A Guide To Choosing The Best One: This article can help you make an informed choice. Explore its different sections to understand:

• The 8 critical steps for making an informed choice like clarity of goals, team size, integrations, required features, budget, etc.
• The 4 questions that you must ask for each OKR software you take into consideration, especially around scale, OKR tracking etc.  

Now that you have a broad understanding of what are the factors you should keep in mind while choosing your OKR software, you need to start exploring the market for the options available. 

11 Best OKR Software You Need to Know About (2022 Edition): This is a curated list to help you get a detailed analysis of some of the best OKR software available for you and give you a view of what features you should not miss. Check out this article to:

• Understand which are the top OKR software available and key information about them including which team size they are ideal for, key features, pros and cons, whether or not they offer a free trial and pricing
• Navigate through a list of OKR software curated especially from a startup lens enlisting OKR software which are most ideal choices for rapidly growing organizations
• Explore the key considerations you must keep in mind when comparing between different alternatives

OKR best practices

To aid you in effectively using OKRs, we have curates a list of OKR best practices that you should always keep in mind:

1. OKRs should be agile

The purpose of agile OKRs is to enable team members to work on projects that make the most impact to the business in that week and pivot at a moment’s notice without additional loss of resources. Thus, giving organizations the opportunity to quickly respond to internal and external changes and adapt their processes faster. 

Intel contributes their microprocessor win against Motorola to the OKR based model of strategy execution

OKRs and Agility: Check out this article to understand how OKRs facilitate business agility by ensuring that goals are set periodically and not annually, with a focus on real time grading and feedback which makes rearranging priorities more accessible during uncertainty and ambiguity.

2. OKRs should be simple

OKRs should be simple, not easy. They should be a stretch to an individual or a team’s ability, but they should not be too complicated to understand and should focus on simplifying organizational visions into understandable action steps. 

3. OKRs should be transparent and collaborative

OKRs are for creating alignment on an organization level. For most companies, everyone’s OKRs are accessible to everyone else’s. Thus, making the achievement of goals a clear, transparent, collaborative process. 

4. Nested cadence

The OKR framework is so compelling to organizations because it carefully combines all levels of business needs. It addresses long-term top level strategic business goals with short-term quarterly team / departmental goals. Thus, OKRs ensure that at any point in time, all organizational effort and resources are aligned toward a specific vision.

5. OKRs are bi-directional

It requires top-down and bottom-up collaboration across leadership, managers and team members. Thus, the OKR framework also utilizes 360 degree feedback. Typically, around 60% of OKRs are set in unison with managers in a bottom-up approach.

6. OKRs are aspirational

OKRs are designed to stretch individual abilities to an extent where higher than expected performance is the norm while keeping in mind that overly aggressive goals might lead to frustration and fear of failure.

“If you’re achieving all your goals, you’re not setting them aggressively enough.”- Eric Schmidt

7. OKRs should only be reserved for high value goals

Every OKR should directly add value to business results. Choose OKRs that provide real tangible value to the business. If a team can achieve 100% of their assigned OKRs without using the entire team’s bandwidth fully, make sure to raise the bar.

8. Separate OKRs from compensation

As OKRs are aspirational, it is important to use OKRs as a management tool and not as an employee evaluation tool. Instead of financial rewards driving performance, let the aspiration and autonomy behind OKRs drive intrinsic motivation that pushes employees to take risks and reach for high performance.

Bonus Tip: How to avoid OKR mistakes

15 Common OKR Mistakes & How to Fix Them: Check out this article to understand which OKR mistakes you are vulnerable to and how you can anticipate or fix them to ensure maximum impact for your organization. You can leverage the quick hacks to ensure that you avoid the common pitfalls seamless in your OKR journey. 

Benefits of OKRs

The benefits of setting clear, specific OKRs is manifold. Right OKRs can supercharge the performance of an organization within a short period of time by optimizing operational inputs. Here are some of the time-tested benefits of OKRs —

“By clearing the line of sight to everyone’s objectives, OKRs expose redundant efforts and save time and money.”

1. OKRs create accountability

OKRs are always verifiable. It is a transparent way of announcing what everyone in a department or organization is working on, thereby creating accountability. 

2. OKRs help overcome communication barriers

OKRs aid in clear communication by letting employees know what is expected of them in a given period of time, while also communicating what’s not important. 

3. OKRs align goals with purpose 

OKRs connect individual efforts with departmental and team goals which is further connected to organizational vision by another set of OKRs. 

4. OKRs accelerate growth 

When employees have clarity about their roles, assignment, and purpose, and are willing to take risks, set audacious goals, and perform at a higher level, the business thrives.

5. OKRs influence culture

OKRs transform output-based culture into outcome-based culture, leading to a culture of accountability, focus, and continuous feedback and builds a highly engaged workforce.

OKR email course

With SuperBeings, 10 days are all you need to get started with your OKR journey and master it too. This 10 day OKR email course will ensure that you receive one email every day on different aspects of OKRs. This is your direct access to highly curated and exclusive resources to set, align and achieve OKRs like never before. It will help you streamline your efforts in a process driven manner, enabling you to take one step at a time and ensuring that you set OKRs for success. Moreover, it’s completely free! 🙂

OKR advanced guide (PDF)

Once you have a basic understanding of how OKRs work and get started with them in your organization, you may want to take the next step and deepen your OKR strategy. That’s when you will need an Advanced Guide to OKRs. 

The OKR advanced guide talks about diverse themes focusing on setting OKRs for success, discusses the nuances of implementing them effectively, grading them strategically and how it influences your performance management process and culture.

“Healthy culture and structured goal setting are interdependent.”

How to use OKRs for impactful culture

OKRs have an impact on organizations beyond the bottom line and achievement of business objectives, they directly help create a thriving and impactful culture. Explore this article to understand how you can use OKRs to create an impactful culture. This article will help you uncover the various facets of this topic, including:

• How OKRs lead to a spirit of collective goal setting and brainstorming
• The impact of OKRs in facilitating transparency by making goals clear along with assigning accountability for each OKR
• How OKRs help create a culture of check-ins and processes with their cadence driven approach 
• The way OKRs help create a purpose driven organization by helping employee align their goals with company goals 
• How OKRs result in a culture of autonomy which gives employees the freedom to take risks, and aspire high, without apprehensions

Why do you need an OKR master

Like any other department or priority in the organization, you need someone who can take charge of the entire OKR movement. Our article illustrates why you need an OKR master to truly unlock the potential of this goal setting framework. It talks about how without an OKR master, you will find it challenging to bring all your OKR efforts together and follow through with diverse stakeholders in the organization. An OKR master will help:

• Introduce OKRs to your organization and help everyone understand the need to adopt them
• Managers and team members use OKRs in an effective and efficient manner and prevent them from setting OKRs which are too many, too difficult or too easy
• Attain accountability and ensure that everyone responsible for OKRs is tracked in real time to monitor progress and provide support
• Employees deal with blockers and enablers and guide them in their OKR journey in case they are stuck/ need additional resources
• Facilitate regular OKR training to keep your employees up the curve and finally, ensure that your OKRs are being completed and not being left hanging in the middle

Flexible, simple, all-in-one OKR tool 

SuperBeings OKR tool is all you need if you are getting started or are in the process of accelerating your OKR journey. With this tool, growing organizations like yours can build greater visibility into OKRs across the organization as well as enable real time insights into OKR progress to resolve issues. 

SuperBeings helps you automate reports, check-ins so you can spend your time achieving results. That’s not all, your managers can receive OKR coaching to implement right OKRs and sync OKRs with 1:1s. Check out SuperBeings OKR tool to align individual performance with business goals.

Want to see in action what you read? Book a free demo with one of our OKR experts today. No credit card required.

Goal Setting and OKR FAQs 

#1 Are OKRs the same as KPIs?

Often, organizations starting their OKR journey get confused between OKRs and KPIs. While used interchangeably by some, it is important to understand that there are critical differences between them, and they often work together rather than replacing each other. On the face of it, OKR is more of a goal-setting framework which helps organizations determine what needs to be done and how, while KPIs are focused on performance evaluation while everyone strives to achieve those goals. Also, KPIs are sustainable over time and don’t change on a regular basis, whereas OKRs often have a short life and keep transforming regularly. 

OKR vs KPI: The Difference and How They Can Work Together: Check out this quick read to understand the key differences between the two and how you can use them together for better results.

#2 What is the difference between SMART goals and OKRs?

SMART goals are defined as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. 

First, The primary difference between SMART goals and OKRs is that the principles of SMART goals only allow to craft the chief objective. They provide the answer to “what should we aim for?”. Whereas, OKRs, on the other hand, give clear and specific directions on where and how to allocate resources to make sure the primary objective gets done on time. OKRs provide the answer to “what should we aim for and how do we get there?”.

Secondly, SMART goals are best for setting individual or the primary organizational goal. While working on day-to-day tasks, employees often lose sight of the bigger picture to understand how their work connects to the bigger purpose. Objective and Key Results framework prevent this by strategically connecting individual and the overarching organizational goal with team and departmental goals. Thus, OKRs help employees to work together in alignment with business strategy at all moments.

Third, SMART goals do not provide a roadmap for continuously tracking progress or the lack of it. OKRs are more insightful to measure performance and build accountability.

Instead of choosing one or the other, always set OKRs and make them SMART.

#3 Should individuals have OKRs or just up to teams?

While goal setting and management is important at all levels, OKRs are most effective when they are set at the team level. There are several reasons for this.

First, if employees start setting their OKRs, it eventually becomes a list of the tasks they seek to perform and not the overarching objectives and key results.

‍Second, OKRs are meant to be achieved together with collaborative work. However, if individual OKRs are set, each one will focus on their key results, which can seldom be achieved in silos.

‍For instance, if a key result is to increase customer lifetime value by 15%, it is a shared result, which one employee cannot achieve.

Therefore, it is best to set OKRs for teams, which can be cascaded down to individual employees as KPIs based on their strengths and competencies

Wrapping Up

Objectives and Key Results are critical for organizations to clearly distinguish between strategy, tactics, and operations. OKRs help organizations to stay grounded in reality while shooting for the moon, to plan for the future while staying focused on immediate goals. Setting OKRs requires careful planning but it takes far less time to do so than traditional goal-setting methods.

Don’t treat OKRs like new year resolutions that you set once and then forget. Keep following it up with all team members at regular intervals and make sure that resources are being used for the right things at the right time.

Managers and business leaders are perennially in the process of identifying tools and practices to boost employee engagement. However, constructive employee feedback is generally out of the picture. While most managers say if a particular deliverable was up to the mark or not, they rarely give the reasoning behind the same. Put simply, employee feedback is having a constructive discussion with your employees and team members about what is working and what is not. Statistically speaking, employee feedback has a direct impact on engagement and performance. Research shows 43% of highly-engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week. Additionally, 75% of employees prefer their feedback as early as possible. 

The value in employee feedback

There are various reasons which make employee feedback a critical tool for organizational success and effectiveness, here are a few of them:

Clarifies expectations and path ahead: Firstly, offering feedback helps employees understand what is expected out of them. These expectations help them charter out a clear plan for themselves. It helps employees understand where they are going wrong and gives them the chance to perform better. Most importantly, it helps them create a course of action and improvement. 

Important for individual and organizational health: Unless managers offer employee feedback, it is unfair to expect employees to improve their performance. Sluggish or no improvement in performance hurts both the employee’s morale and confidence as well as the organization’s top line. Invariably, this is defeating both for employee as well as organizational health. Employee feedback bridges this gap and allows employees to play on their strengths and work on their weaknesses to boost their performance and bring in greater productivity.

Decreased attrition: Lack of feedback is often cited as a reason by employees for leaving an organization. A study by Gallup showed that turnover rates are 14.9% lower in employees who receive feedback than those who don’t. All managers and business leaders know the cost of employee turnover. Thus, employee feedback can be an effective way to save millions incurred during onboarding, training and getting new hires up the curve.

Opens up conversations and communication: Finally, employee feedback opens up channels for communication and conversation between employees and their managers. Not only does this add to great relationship building which boosts employee engagement but also enables managers to understand employee personality and ensure effective mentoring and guidance. 

Role of managers in employee feedback

It goes without saying that managers are the flag bearers for employee feedback. More often than not, they directly interact with the employees and understand their personality. Invariably, this makes them the custodian of employee intel. This consequently results in them having the right approach to delivering feedback constructively. Organization and business leaders today need to promote manager coaching to deliver feedback to ensure performance effectiveness and organizational success.

The buck doesn't stop here

While acknowledging the importance of employee feedback is the first step, it is by no means the end. Put simply, the focus should not only be on offering feedback, but offering it in the right way which can be acted upon. Those who give feedback must do so with some clear pointers on what could be better and what went well. Additionally, focus should be on the long term goals rather than short term tasks and projects. Stay tuned to this space as we bring to you quick hacks on delivering constructive feedback. 

Suggested reading:

Employment Feedback Handbook 2022

Continuous Feedback in the Workplace

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