What is OKR and why is it important?

In an increasingly competitive environment, companies are trying many new methods to achieve success. Agility is now one of the most important competencies to be had in this period. OKR shines like a light for the future of companies. So, what is this OKR, why is it important for companies and how is it applied in human resources processes? Let’s have a look.

What is OKR?

The OKR method (Objectives and Key Results), put forward by Peter Drucker, is a roadmap that reveals the rapid and agile realization of company goals by defining them. Regardless of the sector, department, or company, it efficiently focuses the employees on the main objectives and creates an agile management process. OKR’s history is not very close. Introduced in the 1950s, OKR was discovered by rapidly growing companies with the successful use of Google’s growth strategy and started to be applied in the managerial strategies of companies.

Why is it important?

OKR enables all departments and employees of the company to see the whole picture on the road to success. In this way, all individuals determine the priorities for the institution in the work they will do and see the tasks that need to be focused on. 

OKR, “where do I want to go?” and answers questions such as “what do I want to achieve”. In this method, objectives; while possessing qualitative, elusive but desirable, and always value-oriented features; Key results, on the other hand, should have specific, quantitative, result-oriented features that can be realized within the specified time frame.

OKR includes interdepartmental collaboration, open communication, employee motivation and engagement, and benefits such as focus, speed, and agility. It shows what work should be done by the employees on the way to the goals, and provides competencies in focusing and prioritizing. 

It increases the team spirit as a result of strong communication by including all employees in the organizational business processes of the companies. OKR provides transparency for individuals to achieve the best, while also increasing autonomy by supporting employees in taking initiative. It creates an agile management process as a result of reasons such as clarity, harmony, adaptation, and speed. You will appreciate that in the competitive environment of the 21st century, what companies need most is speed and adapt to it!

OKR in HR processes

The superpower OKR, which creates an environment where employees can work with purpose, has been applied by many successful companies (Intel, Google, LinkedIn, etc.) and has achieved great results.

How the OKR method is applied in HR applications:

Corporate culture

• Objectives: Providing your employee’s work-life balance
• Key Results: Supporting employees to take leave, ensuring their participation in company activities, regularly implementing social responsibility projects.
• Objectives: Increasing employee loyalty
• Key Results: Creating a culture of all-around feedback within the company, applying regular surveys for employee satisfaction, and providing clarity for goals to increase participation.

Recruitment

• Objectives: Strengthening employer branding to attract the right talent
• Key Results: Efforts to increase your brand awareness, winning awards such as the best employer, positive/negative feedback on applications, strengthening marketing activities.

Performance management

• Objectives: Increasing the performance of beginners
• Key Results: Reducing the adaptation time, reducing the performance evaluation time, and increasing the recruitment rate.
• Objectives: Making managers more effective and successful.
• Key Results: Enabling managers to participate in training programs twice a year, ensuring the development of feedback through regular meetings, and conducting anonymous surveys for employees.

Employee retention

• Objectives: Retaining the successful employee for a long time
• Key Results: Providing employees with a flexible working environment, providing fringe benefits, creating career development support programs, and increasing employee satisfaction scores.

Training and development

• Objectives: To identify the training programs needed for the productivity of the employees.
• Key Results: Identifying personal training programs for each employee and allocating the budget.

Sources:

https://www.keka.com/human-resource-okr-examples

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