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What is an OKR in HR?
Learn all the key points about OKR methodology in HR used in businesses. Continue reading this article.
Marcos Lopez
HR Consultant
21 of February, 2025
Objectives and Key Results, better known as OKR, is a management method that aims to simplify the way to tackle a company’s goals. The OKR methodology in HR is being implemented more strongly today thanks to the notable results it offers. In this article, we will talk about everything related to this method, the planning of goals in a simple way, among other relevant points. Keep reading and don’t miss anything.
Maintaining focus on the company’s goals is a great challenge for the whole organization. Because planning and executing are tasks that seem simple in theory, but in practice they can be harder than you thought. To strengthen and scale a company, it is necessary to find a solid model that allows reaching goals easily and quickly. This is where the OKR methodology comes into play.
What is the OKR method used for?
The acronym OKR (Objectives and Key Results) stands for: Objectives and Key Results. It’s about a method whose aim is to establish objectives, define intended goals and communicate the results within the organization.
The idea of OKR in HR is to manage personal, measurable objectives focused on the vision of the company. OKRs should be public, and their task is to measure development at the level of employee, group or team and company.
If we go to its origins, we see that OKR was created in 1970 thanks to the then CEO of Intel, Andrew Grove. Since its creation we can see that it works. To give an example, Google has been using the OKR methodology since 1999. That year, the tech company had a team of 40 employees. Now, the company employs more than 60,000 professionals globally.
How does the OKR method work?
Where are we going as a company? What steps should I take to get there? With these questions you can define the company’s goal. You can also establish how each person or employee should work to achieve it in the shortest time possible.
Objectives
Objectives, basically, are clear and understandable achievements, concrete and specific, difficult but achievable. These must be achieved in a specific period of time by a person or a work team, and their achievement should create motivation.
Objectives represent a specific direction as to where the company wants to go. In addition, objectives also drive to keep all members of the company aligned and committed to the same focus.
When setting goals, a tip to follow is to make them big and ambitious. If they turn out to be too ‘easy’, aim for bigger ideas.
Key Results
Without specific planning, it’s unlikely to fulfill the objectives set from the start. Key results work to determine how close the company is to comply with an objective. That is, they are intermediate goals or indicators that aid in achieving the goal.
For example:
Main objective: Increase sales of a specific product.
- KR No. 1: Double the number of contacts that are generated each month.
- KR No. 2: Shorten the sales cycle by 20%.
- KR No. 3: Boost cross-selling of the product in question.
In this way, we can observe that each objective has its secondary goals, which would be the key results. They contribute to achieving the objectives and facilitating the arrival of the desired results. It’s about tracking progress towards the achievement of that main goal.
OKR Methodology in HR
As we have seen throughout this post, OKR is an internal management method based on the setting of objectives and the key results from their achievement. These guide the actions to be taken to reach success satisfactorily. To do this, they organize the way of working, generate work teams, internal communication protocols, as well as tracking the performance for each worker.
You may ask, what does the OKR method have to do with HR? Actually, a lot. Implementing, defining and deploying an excellent model of management by objectives in the company is the responsibility of the human resources department. And adopting the use of the OKR method is ideal for this. In addition, this means that the adoption of this working method has a direct impact on the talent management process. It provides various benefits to such management and becomes an essential tool for designing the company’s own culture. It also influences the improvement of the working environment and, therefore, in the enhancement of employee engagement and motivation.
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