December 10, 2020
Using OKR Software to Optimize Remote Workforce Performance
During these unprecedented times, organizations around the world are adopting measures to ensure employee safety and well-being. This has resulted in the shift towards remote-first culture which brings various challenges like managing work-life balance, lack of collaboration with peers, and increasing anxiety levels. It has become even more important for managers to help their teams focus on the priorities, align to their targeted goals, and achieve better outcomes. Ultimately, this has turned up every organization to implement OKR software for effective goal setting and performance management of the remote workforce.
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a critical framework utilized by companies to align individual progress to the business strategy. When the OKR software is successfully executed, it aids organizations to-
- Drive focus of individuals on what is important and what is not
- Imbibe disciplined thinking towards achieving the desired business objectives
- Communicate the right kind of approach amongst employees to attain success
- Instill focus on efforts and ensure better alignment towards the intended goals
- Boost collaboration among the teams as well as between employees and their managers
- Establish the right rhythm to track and assess individual performance
- Spur innovation while driving everyone towards a shared set of goals
Today, the majority of the workforce is working remotely, so everyone within the organization should be aligned to the common goals that thrive to business success. Here is how you can optimize remote workforce performance using OKR software-
Improve Collaboration between Teams
It is human nature to conduct business in a face to face manner, while engaging, discussing ideas, and interacting live. Even while shifting towards the remote-first culture, aligning to the business goals, collaborating with peers, and focusing on the outcome remain the key to success. The OKR software serves as a perfect way to facilitate collaboration between the remote teams by sharing common goals. This motivates employees to focus on boosting overall performance and productivity levels, thus attaining improved results.
Focus on Outcome-aligned Approach
OKRs are not a checklist of tasks that need to be completed. Business leaders embrace the concept of OKRs to adopt an outcome-driven approach for remote employees. They create OKRs to optimize business outcomes, leading to increased employee efficiency, better business productivity, and improved uptake. Using OKR software, companies focus on outcome-driven planning so that employees get an opportunity to track progress and refresh their goals timely to reduce the uncertainty of the results.
Choose the Right Cadence
While instilling a work from home culture, companies are wondering whether they should shift their focus towards achieving short-term goals with OKRs. By adopting an outcome-driven approach, the need for short cadences can be minimized. The OKR software utilizes nested cadence to meet the short-term as well as long-term goals. Firstly, companies set the high-level annual OKRs that enables everyone to focus on the broader picture- vision, values, strategy. Then, quarterly OKRs must be created for the teams to engage, focus, and drive outcomes. Lastly, regular check-ins enable managers to track results, review performance, and provide feedback towards the end of each quarter.
Collate Metrics at one Place
Even if your employees are working from remote locations, adopting OKR methodology can help to track progress based on the key metrics. The intuitive dashboards, reporting, and tracking features of OKR software enable companies to outline their business priorities. The performance metrics created against each OKR can be automatically tracked and measured quarterly or annually to ensure success.
Managing a remote workforce and executing OKRs can impose different challenges. However, with the successful adoption of OKR software, organizations can ensure the utmost focus on the priorities, bring clarity while assigning goals, and improve the business results. This leads to increasing the chances to meet the company objectives, driving workforce performance, and growing significantly whilst working remotely.
In today’s challenging times, businesses must ensure that their employees can take the company forward with consistent focus, alignment, clarity, and accountability. The OKR software can serve as an ideal way to add real value to your business. Unlock:OKR is a simple yet powerful framework utilized by organizations for setting goals and improving performance. It also enables employees to work and perform per their specific job roles and functions- be it Operations, Sales, Marketing, and others. To explore more about the features and benefits of Unlock:OKR, join our unique First Class program.