Why is OKR motivating for employees and how to explain OKR to employees?

Objectives and key results help employees prevent burnout as firms adopt hybrid work arrangements. Even with the best goal-setting framework, managers must still help employees understand why they should use OKRs in their daily work lives. For a team to truly say they are "working with purpose," it takes more than a compelling business mission statement. OKRs is benefitial for your remote team and have several advantages for employees, including the following. You need to explain this to your team as a leader so everyone is on the same page.

OKR benefits from an employee perspective.

• A clear understanding of the expectations and critical results will determine your success.
• Transparency and cohesion. You understand how your goal relates to the team, department, and corporate goals. Sense of effect, connection, and significance. Rather than working alone, without knowing the impact of your job.
• Enhance productivity by focusing on goals that support the business's overall objectives. Your daily duties will be more vital than others when you have this lighthouse to guide you. This prevents you from wasting time on a project or presentation that doesn't meet management's requirements. Aside from that, you don't have to justify your actions continuously. 
• Get praise and see what others are accomplishing. By listing quarterly or monthly goals and key results, everyone knows what you’re working on. In addition, everyone knows what you are doing, making feedback easy.
• Establish the company’s objectives and your department goals. As a manager, you must decide how your department's goals are set. These goals may be set by your supervisor, top management, or even by you. In any case, the aims are probably based on industry standards or competitiveness. Your employees must thoroughly understand your goals- no matter how they are set. You must also be able to communicate these goals to your team.

Steps to present OKR method to employees.

• Effective internal communication: story and announcements.

Increasing employee engagement and productivity requires instilling a sense of ownership in your employees. However, this can only happen if they actively participate in day-to-day communications. Internal communication used to be done this way: from the top down. And that is exactly why it doesn't work that way anymore. You don't want to just "talk at" your workers. You want to "talk with" them instead. Stories straight from the heart convey honesty, and honesty makes you stand out and engage workers. And it is not just about heartfelt stories, but it is about genuine communication- saying things that you mean rather than saying things you think should be said for the sake of it. This is especially important for senior leaders and upper management. Internal storytelling is more creative than regimented technique. Always remember that stories can transmit any type of information, so use them to your advantage.

• 1-1 meetings

It is important to have a short one-on-one meeting with employees at least once or twice a week. Not just to keep track of their progress, but it is also important to see how you can help them reach their goals. They might be behind because they have a lot of other things to do. People may need more of a challenge because they have already met their goals. If a goal, its description, and the progress bar are all that a manager needs to know, they can't just look at them and figure everything out.

• Regular reminders 

Use check-ins to encourage everyone to keep their goals up-to-date, share what they're working on, and discuss their current priorities.

• Management of OKR 

You can utilise a tool or software to manage your OKRs that support your preferred goal-setting format and automate all things you shouldn't be wasting your time on. Many people and businesses use spreadsheets to create their OKRs, but roughly 75% of businesses abandon them because their employees do not actuaRememberlly end up using them. 

As a result, if you're serious about motivating and engaging people in their goals, choose a tool that makes it as simple as possible. You'll have a better chance of forming a habit, and people will be more likely to update their goals frequently.