What OKR Options Should I Consider For My Business?

Many major tech companies like Amazon, Spotify, Twitter, and LinkedIn use OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) as a system to assist them to achieve certain goals. That doesn’t mean the OKR system is only restricted to big companies. Even small businesses can use OKRs to increase productivity and output by helping businesses progress towards specific goals.

Google was among the first companies to make use of the OKR system to synchronize its business model towards a singular, ambitious goal in the late 1990s. Google was able to increase its manpower and resources tremendously as a result of this framework.

Over the years multiple businesses in the tech and corporate sectors have followed suit. Learn more about OKRs and some OKR Examples your business should consider now.

How OKRs Help Businesses

Most businesses adopt a top-down system when it comes to the implementation of workplace policies. This system is rigid, often getting bogged down in its own bureaucratic processes.

This is due to a lack of transparency between senior and junior employees, resulting in employees getting stuck while trying to figure out how they can cut through the bureaucratic red tape to achieve their objectives.

With OKRs, the only top-down decisions are made at the company level while employees are free to come up with their own OKRs to help progress towards the company’s agenda. OKRs also allow for a bottom-up process, which allows for valuable communication and monitoring from departments and individuals concerned with improving the performance of the business.

Benefits of OKRs

Increases Workplace Productivity

OKRs align the business interests on a daily basis, channeling it towards the company-wide vision of your organization. The more aligned your employees are, from contributors to managers, the higher your chances of success.

Makes Employees More Coordinated

With proper planning and implementation, OKRs let you bring a sense of coordination and purpose with your employees and in the long-run goals are easily achieved.

Improves Management and Allocation of Resources

Passive management is a common result of top-down policy implementation. Project managers and senior executives disconnected from the process are unaware of the teams and individuals that may be helping or hindering the process.

OKRs allow for measurable and repeatable results which you can use to identify how your team sets and tracks goals to accomplish the specific mission of your business. Having this information will sharpen resource allocation as will you know how much each team or individual requires to get the job done.

Some OKR Examples to Consider for Your Business

Objective: Increase social media presence

Key Results:

1. Achieving 10,000 views on your Twitter feed or YouTube channel.
2. Earning 5,000 new subscribers.
3. Increase organic search traffic to your channel or main website by 15%.

Objective: Creating, designing, and implementing a new product

Key Results:

1. Create a new product.
2. Interview 25 existing customers on their desires for a new product line.

Objective: Launching a new social media campaign

Key Results:

1. Post content on your YouTube or Twitter.
2. Get a list of comments and/or subscribers.
3. Post content for your subscribers.

Join the World’s Leading Companies in Using OKR

As demonstrated in the OKR examples listed above, the system is quite simple yet effective, encouraging collaboration between different departments/individuals. OKRs as a tool can greatly enhance the performance capabilities and overall productivity by streamlining the goals of a business.

Make use of OKRs today to boost performance, synchronize goals and align interests in your workplace as so many companies in the corporate sector do today.

Sam Bradford is an avid writer, music lover, and all things zombie related. You can check out more of his writing at techiereport.com.