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Steps to define OKR goals in the company
Learn what OKRs are in companies and the steps to follow to define general and specific objectives.
Isabel García
HR Consultant
17 of February, 2025
More and more businesses are turning to OKR goals to achieve their objectives. Thanks to the implementation of these methodologies, measurable goals can be defined, and the entire company will row in the same direction.
The OKR methodology, unlike another model, such as SMART, indicates the goal and the actions to take to achieve it. Huge companies like Amazon, Uber, Google, or Huaweo, prefer working with OKR, something that literally any company can do, regardless of its size. Of course, as long as they have well defined how to apply this popular methodology.
Set clear and precise objectives
One of the essential points for this methodology to be effective is to specify the objectives. These must be as clear as possible; after all, what is expected is to avoid major problems. The simpler the formulation of the objective and the key results, the easier it will be to achieve them. On the other hand, it will also facilitate the tracking of work goals. The entire staff will have them clear and understood and will move in one direction to achieve the goals. A confusing objective will create doubts and can be counterproductive to productivity.
How to set the OKR goals?
For this, knowing the company’s main objective is very relevant. In fact, the definition of goals and key results begins with the implementation of the objective. Then, focus on quarterly objectives, which should not be more than three or four. These are the intermediate points to reach the goal. They are inspiring goals, because each goal will have its own key result, and this is where the metrics, the deadlines, and the monitoring of work metrics appear. Finally, define the key actions for each result in question, basically, what to do to achieve the result. It is the tasks that each work team or department must fulfill.
Short-term goals
Although a medium or long-term goal and objective are really pursued, it is necessary to work in the short term. Hence, the OKR methodology works with specifically limited goals and deadlines. The fact of having quarterly objectives makes the staff remain prepared and pending in the search for these goals. Working with goals more than three months can lead multiple teams to procrastinate. The thought reflected by ‘there is still time to do it’ or ‘we will see it later’ has no place within the OKR methodology. Brevity, precision, and effectiveness are vital factors.
The OKR objectives should be public
Everyone should know the OKRs, so they must be made known in the company. It is a gesture of transparency, but it also helps to keep the entire workforce motivated. The whole team will be able to visualize how progress is being made in achieving the goals, creating greater confidence and commitment when meeting key goals and results. Nevertheless, it should be clear that the goal is not to pressurize the staff to achieve these goals, but to keep them informed about the progress information.
Tracking work goals
The grace of OKR objectives is within the measurement of work goals as mechanisms to know whether or not these objectives are being met. For this reason, it is extremely important that the tracking of work goals is continuous. There is no need to wait until the end of the quarter to analyze the metrics. If it can be done monthly, it would be fine. If it would be every two weeks, even better, although ideally, it would be done every 7 days; weekly.
OKR methodology in HR
As we have discussed, OKR is a method of internal management based on defining goals and key results from its achievement. These guide all the actions to put the plans to achieve success within the company into operation. For this, the way of working is organized, work teams are developed, communication protocols, as well as monitoring each employee’s performance.
All of this has a lot to do with the human resources department. The act of establishing, defining, and deploying a good management model for goals within the company is the responsibility of HR. And adopting the OKR methodology is an excellent option for that. Apart from this, the acceptance of said work methodology acts directly on talent management, bringing benefits within the management and transforming into a key instrument to design the company’s culture. OKR goals bring different benefits to companies, but the biggest one is that any company can develop much faster by implementing this methodology to achieve their goals.
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