The OKR method (Objectives & Key Results), which we have been deploying for our clients since 2018, is a powerful tool for refocusing and aligning the entire company on the right priorities for action, generating collective commitment, empowering each employee, and developing a culture of results.
To capitalize on these superpowers, it is not enough to define objectives and key results! That is by integrating OKRs into daily management, across the organization, that the full power of the method is revealed… and brings with it questions about the evaluation of individual performance.
When I present the OKRs to the leaders or managers, one of their first questions is to know How to link the KR to individual objectives. Some, for fear of seeing their own bonus indexed to a Key Result particularly ambitious… and others, already having the intuition that OKRs could be translated into personal goals that are much more aligned with the company strategy.
Linking individual performance to OKRs: is it really useful?
Contrary to the practice of Objectives & Key Results at Google, popularized in the best-selling book « Measure what matters » by John Doerr, I advise companies I accompany to define OKRs at the individual level.
OKR should remain collective commitments, at the level of the company, of a management team or a team.
Managers are urged to present them to their teams – ensuring that everyone understands how they can contribute – so that the teams can then develop the KR into project roadmaps.
This step, too often neglected or insufficiently formalized, is fundamental for verify the alignment between the management’s expectations of results and the action proposals issued by the teams.
It is also during these alignment discussions that they can appear inconsistencies between the KR and the resources made available to the team concerned. In this case, it is up to the manager to adapt the Key Result concerned or going to seek the necessary resources for the team to succeed.
These steps, which already allow for particularly strong collective alignment, is it really necessary? go down to the definition of the contribution of each member of the team I think so!
Since individual goals (usually annual) are set for employees, it seems coherent and even absolutely necessary. It is necessary to be able to link the strategic priorities (defined by the OKRs) to individual objectives. in order to complete the circle.
From collective goals to individual contributions
As mentioned above, the challenge is to enable each collaborator to understand how, through their daily tasks, they contribute to the roadmap of projects, the key results, and the associated objectives. In short, how it contributes to the company’s overall strategy.
If we commonly talk about individual goals, when we adopt the OKR method, it becomes It is preferable to use the term «individual contributions» to avoid any confusion between the different types of objectives.
Example of an OKR for a call center responsible for customer relations
In our example, the call center’s OKRs present this objective: «We are available at all times, we respond and find solutions without waiting.» One of them Key Results The resulting result is: «The time required to resolve customer requests over the phone will decrease from an average of 6’35’’ to 4’50’’ in 2024.».
- Clara, responsible for methods and training of customer advisors, took up this KR to reflect on her own contribution. After analyzing numerous calls, she concluded that the time spent by the advisors in properly qualifying the customer need is too long. This sequence of discovering the need abnormally extends the duration of the call, creating a queue that is too long for other customers contacting the center, and generating impatience and dissatisfaction among the customers during the exchange.
- His individual contribution therefore consists of writing new call and questioning scenarios that allow for better identification of the client's online needs. She will then be able to test them, validate them, and ensure that all the call center advisors adopt these new scenarios.
- Clara can therefore translate these actions into an individual contribution, which is expressed in a form close to that of a Key Result : «The precise identification of the customer's needs is done in less than a minute in 90% of calls.».
Towards a quarterly cadence of conversations instead of an annual interview
The effective use of OKRs – to make them a powerful method for moving from vision to execution – leads to short-interval retrospectives, ideally every quarter or every quadrimestre. During these retrospectives, it is particularly important to question the relevance of Key Results, To define new ones and to adjust the underlying action plans.
However, as seen in the example above, the individual contributions are closely linked to collective action plans, which themselves are dedicated to achieving the Key Results. These contributions must therefore be reviewed with the same frequency!
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about starting from scratch at every OKR retrospective… but rather about ritualize, following this, an individual conversation of alignment between the manager and each of the employees.
This conversation is an opportunity for the manager to ensure that the team’s OKRs are well understood. This point is all the more crucial if the OKRs are defined at the level of the company or of a management team, because the Key Results They can sometimes seem abstract to some employees.
For example, an office maintenance technician will not necessarily see a direct link between his daily activities, which essentially consist of repairing and maintaining the workplace, and an HR metric related to measuring the well-being of employees at work.
Yet, through his actions, through the repairs and improvements of the premises to make them welcoming, practical and comfortable, he is one of the key players in QVT.
In this perspective of dialogue and alignment, it is strongly recommended to: ask the collaborator to propose his/her individual contributions himself/herself.
Attention, as with the definition of the collective action plan, the question of resources must be addressed. The manager must ensure, in exchange with their collaborator, that the latter has the means (time, skills, resources, budget, etc.) to contribute fully.
In companies that have replaced the overly rigid annual maintenance with these individual exchanges, at the same frequency as OKR reviews (quarterly or quarterly), it is observed that Employees understand the strategy better, feel more responsible for collective projects, and easily connect their individual contributions with the overall strategy.. All these elements contribute to a stronger commitment from the teams!
OKR and individual performance, between transformation initiatives and routine activities
The approach described above, which consists of locking the link between the Key Results and individual contributions inevitably raise another question: Should OKRs only concern the processing areas or also cover the business as usual (the current activities of each team)?
I definitely advocate the second option, even though it goes against the prevailing opinion among OKR method experts!
Not including routine activities in the OKRs amounts to suggesting that leaders only look at and reward contributions to the transformation of the company.
However, even in a context where companies must radically change, the majority of teams spend the most of their time on tasks that fall under the responsibility of the management team. business as usual which guarantees operational excellence and profitability. Consequently, Would it be normal for a performance evaluation system to focus solely on a minority of employees’ actions?
This issue does not only concern commercial functions. For example, a cybersecurity team could spend 80% of its time maintaining the information system to protect itself against cyberattacks… Without neglecting the transformation areas, it would seem logical to have at least one Key Result covering the sum of daily actions to protect systems, for example «no cyberattack requires the closure of the company's IT systems».
In conclusion, I encourage every company using the OKR method to link the objectives and key results that are – by their very nature – collective to individual performance, through the contributions of each individual. To succeed in this way, Feel free to proceed in a gradual manner:
- first define strategic OKRs,
- ensure that coherent action plans result,
- introduce team rituals related to OKRs to help each employee connect their daily activities to strategic issues.
When all this works, then it is time to close the loop by replacing individual goals with the formalization of measurable individual contributions (which may eventually be subject to variable remuneration).
How will you know that you have achieved the perfect alignment? The day when every employee feels empowered to go see their manager when they feel like they are working on topics unrelated to the OKRs. They will be able to question the relevance of their actions… and thus avoid any waste of energy on non-strategic topics.