3 out of 5 employees have work-related stress. This stress can stem from many things, especially with the post-pandemic workforce changing daily. New roles and responsibilities, transitions back to the office, and salary concerns due to inflation.
These stressors are not unique to employees alone, businesses have to consider them as well. Often, these concerns are brought to a company’s Human Resources department. Especially now, more than ever – it’s important to highlight the role HR has on the stability of a business.
So what do OKRs have to do with it? Well, say your business is troubled with employee turnover because of bigger-player companies’ ability to offer higher salaries – what can you do in order to keep your employees? These are the types of discussions HR and high-level leadership has to have when drafting OKRs for HR.
The Objectives and Key Results methodology is a strategic goal-setting framework that forces companies to look within, ask the hard questions, and take actionable steps forward.
Keep reading to learn about HR OKRs.
What Are Human Resources OKRs?
A company’s objectives and key results (OKRs) are a set of measurable, time-bound goals. They are a framework to define the company’s direction and success.
OKRs help teams align their goals and focus areas with the company’s vision and strategy. The alignment ensures that everyone is on track and working toward the company Objective.
When discussing HR OKRs specifically, leadership may agree upon a separate Company Objective as it is not directly correlated to the efforts that Marketing, Sales, and Design teams are working on.
HR OKRs will focus more on employee lifecycle, for example:
- recruiting,
- onboarding,
- compensation,
- career development,
- educational training.
Human Resources may also cover some areas that overlap with Operations, Administrative and Finance teams to cover some areas of business performance.
❗️ How you align your Company Objectives with Departmental and Team OKRs will of course depend on your business and its unique organizational structure.
Whatever the case, HR efforts greatly contribute to the organization’s overall success and should align with the overall company direction, as with any team.
Why HR OKRs Are Vital to Success
Human Resources workers understand how essential it is for employees to feel connected to the company mission, and that their work is valued and purposeful. So, HR employees themselves are misaligned, and lacking any motivation or sense of value – you can imagine how difficult it would be to lead others.
As previously mentioned, this methodology gets the entire company working toward a common high-level improvement area. The OKR process is not one to set some target KPI metrics and just return to your business-as-usual tasks, hoping something sticks – thankfully, it’s more methodical!
Qualitative objectives, and quantitative key results act as the northern light – your short term path toward bigger picture progress.
OKRs keep day-to-day plans, longer term projects and initiatives, and weekly meetings focused on the most important things, one quarter at a time. As an HR employee, this is especially helpful – with many focus areas and often room for improvement – OKRs allow you to stay committed without distractions.
How to Write HR OKRs
It’s important to know what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to measure it, and when you’ll measure it. The process for setting OKRs for human resources is not too different from setting them for other departments in your company.
The main difference is that HR has different focus areas, such as how they are going to create a better working environment, improving employee experience, and company culture.
Setting clearly defined and attainable OKRs creates an effective framework for establishing HR goals.
Tips for Tracking HR Team OKRs
The following are some tips for tracking HR OKRs:
- Use OKR tracking software, or start with a free template to easily visualize progress throughout the quarter
- Follow the best practice of setting 1 Objective per quarter, along with 3-5 measurable Key Results that help determine how close you are to achieving the Objective.
- Read about aspirational vs. committed OKRs
- Hold a Weekly OKR Check-In meeting with your team to review progress on OKRs using your template or software to reference
- Facilitate quarterly reviews with your team, department, and company-wide. This is for retrospective thinking, and planning for the next quarter.
In order for the OKR methodology to work within any organization, you need to ensure that everyone “drinks the kool-aid”, AKA, they’ve bought into the system.
The process of setting and tracking OKRs is work in itself! However, don’t be surprised if after some time you’re having deeper discussions, thinking more critically, and witnessing a transformation in company culture.
Invite your team and start tracking your OKRs. Teams with 4+ users enjoy a 14-day free trial
We also have free OKR templates available for Excel and Word users. Download them here ⬅️
18 HR OKR Examples:
Now let’s look through some examples to gather inspiration for your team today!
1. Invest in our teams to ensure talent retention
Key Results
Reduce employee attrition rate from 30 to 10%
Increase employee satisfaction from 65 to 90%
Improve eNPS from 40 to 60%
2 Make our benefits program the best in the market!
Key Results
Decrease the cost of our benefit program by 5% per employee
Assess 4 benefit programs and come to an agreement with a new vendor
Achieve 45% of company participation in the benefits program
3. Reinforce existing competencies to improve employee performance and productivity
Key Results
Develop 4 (one for each department) training programs and confirm them with departmental leaders
Achieve 85% attendance on the training courses
Decrease average overtime hours from 7,5 to 1 per week (per employee)
4. Nurture the teams trough stronger manager-employee relationship
Key Results
Decrease the average amount of employee complaints from 1.1 to 0,4
Increase employee engagement from 52% to 70%
Implement a functioning 1:1 feedback process in 4 stages
Possible stages for KR 3: 1. Analyze the current method of feedback process; 2. Update the process accordingly; 3. Introduce the new process to managers; 4. Managers conduct 1:1 feedback sessions with each employee at least once per quarter.
5. Improve workplace wellness to ensure constant workflow
Key Results
Improve workplace wellness to ensure constant workflow
Increase the % of employees participating in company offered wellness activities from 43% to 65%
Implement the usage of a new wellness platform (5 steps)
Possible steps for KR 3: 1. Research 7 different platforms; 2. Analyze features most needed for our company and choose the most suitable one; 3. Create a plan for onboarding; 4. Have training sessions with managers; 5. Open platform usage for all the employees
6. Improve internal communication to reduce rework and misalignment
This is the example from our HR example video – get a complete breakdown of how this OKR came to life based on possible real world scenarios.
Key Results
Moderate 13 alignment sessions between Customer Success and Tech Support
Reduce the % of resolved tasks being reopened from 80% to 10%
Increase weekly satisfaction with communication quality from 2 (current) to 7 (out of 10)
Organize 7 team presentations with each team presenting internal wins and challenges
7. Encourage internal recommendation for open position to increase the amount of good candidates
Key Results
Improve the number of referred applicants by 50%
Grow the number of closed positions from internal recommendations from 32% to 65%
Lower vacant positions from 16 to 4
8. Improve the recruitment cycle to make the hiring process faster
Key Results
Decrease the time from initial interview to making an offer from 16 to 6 working days
Increase the number of offers accepted to over 90%
Improve the average number of applicants from 10 to 30 per position
9. Improve the onboarding flow to make it more engaging to new hires
Key Results
Get answers to the onboarding survey from 65% of the recent hires (1-6 months)
95% of the new hires finish their onboarding courses within the first 2 weeks
Decrease the average time of onboarding courses from 32h to 18h
10. Increase the interest of working for us to prepare for high need of expert employees for the new department
Key Results
Increase careers page daily traffic average from X to Y
Expand our talent contact list from X to Y people
Find and meet 5 recruitment offices and analyze their service suitability for our company
11. Increase employee engagement to get people exited about working at our company
Key Results
Increase participation in internal training courses from 43% to 73%
Have 1:1 discussions following the new format with 90% of the employees
Increase monthly employee engagement survey answer average from 45% to 65%
12. Improve system for continuous feedback to foster a more trustful working environment
Key Results
Develop 6 templates with guiding questions for managers to use in monthly 1:1 meetings
Have 75% of teams executing weekly 20-minute reflection sessions
Decrease # of meetings held on Fridays by 30% to encourage more team connection
13. Boost employee retention by nurturing work-life balance
Key Results:
Decrease the % of employees working overtime from 35% to 10%
Increase the amount of employees working flexible hours from 15% to 40%
Have at least 70% teams actively participating in the updated recognition and reward program
14. Foster a Truly Inclusive Environment to attract the top talent and ensure equality
Key Results
Increase awareness on diversity and inclusion by training 100% of employees
Reduce the equality complaint cases monthly average from 4 to 0
Interview 20 (current and previous) employees to find possible issues and bottlenecks in five steps
5-step process example for KR 3: Step 1: Draft interview questions and topics with external expert; Step 2: Propose interview and agree on meeting times with randomly chosen employees 3. Conduct interviews 4. Create a case study 5. Present case study in a leadership brainstorming session to address the issues
15. Become a workplace people love by creating an easygoing and friendly environment
Key Results
Host weekly Happy Friday events with average 65% of employees joining
Increase the average amount of employee-manager feedback sessions from 0.7 to 2.5 per quarter
Increase employee satisfaction rate from 6.2 to 8.9 on average
16. Foster a truly inclusive environment to attract the top talent and ensure equality
Increase awareness on diversity and inclusion by training 100% of employees
Reduce the equality complaint cases monthly average from 4 to 0
Interview 20 (current and previous) employees to find possible issues and bottlenecks in five steps
Step 1: Draft interview questions and topics with external expert; Step 2: Propose interview and agree on meeting times with randomly chosen employees 3. Conduct interviews 4. Create a case study 5. Present case study in a leadership brainstorming session to address the issues
17. Improve compensation metrics while staying within budget
Increase the salary competitiveness ratio by 60%
Increase the percentage of employees using the optional time-off benefit from 50% to 85%
Increase the percentage of employees signing up for company paid health insurance from 40% to 70%
18. Improve professional development plans available to employees
Prepare anonymous survey for feedback on current plan and distribute to entire company with 90% return
Test 4 new systems for management of individual roadmap and plans
Increase professional development plan completion rate from 40% to 75%
Update Your OKR Software Today
We hope you have a better understanding of how to set and track HR OKRs after reading this article and our example OKRs.
If you are ready to streamline the process and use the best software in the industry, Weekdone is ready to help you track those strategic goals company-wide.
Weekdone simplifies setting, monitoring, and tracking OKRs from the Company Objective, to departments and teams. Don’t just take our word for it – read customer case studies!
Not quite sold? Book a demo with one of our OKR coaches to see the software in action!
Free 14-day trial for 4 + users, no credit card required.