How team OKRs improve team happiness

by Carly Clyne | Apr 07, 2022

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Employee happiness measures your team’s sense of engagement and connection with their jobs. Increasing organisational performance and boosting employee engagement can drive tangible business outcomes. Happy employees are more committed to their organisation and perform better to achieve key results.

Research has shown a strong correlation between employee happiness and results, with highly engaged employees significantly outperforming business outcomes, including higher productivity and greater profitability. Gallup uncovered that actively disengaged employees cost their employers 34% of their annual salary, which is a stark statistic. 

You can enhance your team’s happiness by building staff to achieve goals and objectives using team OKRs. Some team members may have heard of the OKR methodology but know very little about it, making it a little harder to get started.

An excellent place to begin is by explaining the benefits of OKRs to the team and how they will make their lives easier. OKRs are designed so that everyone in the team will clearly understand the big picture and understand the indicators of success.

Defining OKRs for the organisation and individual employees provides each team member with the following:

  • Focus – on core tasks
  • Visibility – of the company mission and others’ objectives
  • Responsibility – to objectives, while defining their own key results

OKRs bring teams together under a shared goal and provide clear metrics. OKRs also give accountability and help to show the bigger picture and illustrate how each individual contributes to the wider success of the business. 

How can you apply OKRs in your team?

When it comes to implementing OKRs, there’s no one size fits all. You can tweak the framework depending on your needs and what’s best for your team. Regardless of how you plan to implement OKRs, here are some core concepts that should remain the same:

  • All goals should be agile
    OKRs are not supposed to be static. Your goals will adapt to the organisation’s needs and way of working.
  • OKRs promote transparency
    One of the main goals of using OKRs is that everyone in the team is singing from the same hymn sheet so to speak. Individuals across different teams or departments have access to what other people are doing, what their goals are, and how well they are performing.The OKR framework is a simple tool
  • OKRs are among the most effective organisational tools mainly because it is so simple and straightforward. By stating objectives concisely, as well as the key results, this avoids confusion and ensures that everyone in the team or organisation is aligned.
  • Centre OKRs around ambitious goals
    If your team is reaching their goals 100% of the time, then the goals set are too easy. OKRs are designed to help teams set challenging goals that make the team rethink the way they work to reach peak performance.

OKRs promote a psychological safe ground for employees to thrive.

Organisations that use OKRs provide a low-risk environment for their employees to experiment and set ambitious goals. Employees will not be punished if they set ambitious goals. This makes them more motivated to aim higher. 

Want to chat to us about how you can set team OKRs and improve overall employee happiness? Get in touch with our friendly bunch.