You need proper alignment across all teams and departments to keep your business moving forward. However, manually tracking team objectives slows progress, like putting traffic lights on a highway — that’s where OKR software comes in, acting as a catalyst, streamlining your business operations and propelling you toward your workplace goals.
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Objectives and key results (OKRs) fuel productivity and are key components of HR software. In this article, we’ll cover the top benefits of OKR tools, key features, potential limitations and the best OKR software tools helping speed up your evaluation process!
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Best OKR Software Tools
Having outcomes in mind is a great start, but using key results to make goals measurable is equally important, ensuring you’re on track to reach them. If you’re ready to organize your company goals and streamline your goal-planning process, these five useful OKR tools are worth exploring!
15Five
15Five is a cloud-based performance management software that tracks objectives at every level and sorts them by priority. Streamline collaboration, simplify productivity monitoring, and support employee growth with features like recognition and appreciation, self-reviews with 360-degree feedback, and forward-looking reviews.
Keep a pulse on team morale and overall employee performance with weekly check-ins. With a mobile app available on iOS and Android devices, tracking OKRs on the go becomes effortless. Whether you’re in the financial services, healthcare, or retail sector, 15Five caters to businesses of all sizes.
A visual view of objectives on 15Five’s dashboard screen.
Top Benefits
- API Integrations: Seamlessly integrate with HRIS platforms like BambooHR and Namely for quick updates on employee information and with Slack for seamless communication.
- Native Mobile Apps: Complete questionnaires, add notes to 1-on-1 meetings, give recognition through high fives, update OKR statuses and keep track of dashboard metrics all remotely with the mobile app available on iOS and Android devices.
- Best-Self Kick-off: Set new hires up for success by creatively onboarding them and understanding their strengths and areas for improvement. Get a holistic picture of employee growth and ultimately enhance employee performance.
- Self-Review Dashboard: Manage and track self-reviews through a single dashboard. View company-wide progress, send scheduling reminders and easily access performance details (for HR managers and staff alike).
- Visibility: Boost visibility through a shared feed, displaying all appreciation and recognition across departments. Viewing employee recognition helps keep staff motivated and engaged, instilling a positive work environment.
Primary Features
- OKR Goals: Set up individual, department, and company-wide objectives to structure your performance management processes. Share the status of the objective routinely, ensuring that it’s on track, at risk or behind.
- Reporting and Analytics: Gain strategic insights with employee analytics and progress reports. Monitor employee performance data, respond to feedback and pass along data to higher management, enhancing accountability.
- Feedback Management: Replace long reports, email threads and spreadsheets with a handful of feedback questions, and set up weekly communication between managers and employees. Answer questions and update the status of your OKRs in just 15 minutes per week.
- 1-on-1s: Make your 1-on-1 meetings more effective with our meeting agenda tool. Streamline your planning and execution process, and consolidate all your meeting responses and critical insights in one convenient location.
- Actionable Insights: Filter, drill down and export insights on key objectives, access information on initiative owners, status updates, completion timeframes, and manager feedback, empowering informed decisions.
Limitations
- 15Five does not currently integrate with MS Outlook calendar and has limited integration with other software.
- There’s no statistical feature for goals.
- The platform doesn’t allow stocks to be deleted.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Lattice
Lattice is another strong OKR tool catering to the needs of medium and large enterprises with a cloud-based performance management platform. Simplify monitoring progress with 360-degree performance review cycles, engagement surveys and OKR tracking.
A view of company goal progress and associated owner(s) in Lattice.
Share wins, gather real-time feedback, and automate 1-on-1 meetings to strengthen employee engagement. Set objectives for individual employees and track results until completion. Built-in analytic tools enhance accessibility making all tasks and progress viewable organized graphs.
Top Benefits
- Native Mobile Apps: Enable feedback, employee recognition, view employee objectives, and engage in 1-on-1 conversations remotely through the mobile app, available for iOS and Android devices.
- Security: Prioritize data security with the highest privacy standards through regular penetration testing and security reviews. The platform is GDPR compliant and encrypts data at rest and in transit, using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and gets monitored by 24/7 security, biometric scanning and video surveillance.
- API Integration: Lattice integrates with different systems like HRIS, communication and calendar tools, and G Suite.
- Real-Time Insights: Drive productivity and measure the impact of activities with a continuous, real-time display of employee engagement.
- Support: Don’t worry about being left high and dry with a system you don’t understand. The vendor provides support throughout your journey, from onboarding to the adoption of the software.
Key Features
- Performance Reviews: Ensure every employee has the required inputs that drive individual and company growth with 360-degree feedback. Lattice provides employee-centric performance reviews concentrating on individual results and allowing feedback from peers and managers.
- Feedback Management: Build a real-time talent management system. Gain valuable and actionable information, helping improve performance and enhance employee engagement.
- OKR Goals: Drive performance by setting objectives and tracking the key results. Visualize data and uncover insights to make decisions about employees and organizational performance with reporting and analytics tools.
- Status Updates: Employees receive a list of questions weekly to share their work progress, feelings and request assistance. Updates can be set to public or private, and managers are notified via 1-on-1 updates about their team members.
- Employee Recognition: Provide a platform for recognition. Acknowledge employees for their efforts and allow public praise through a praise wall that celebrates wins together, boosting morale at the workplace.
Limitations
- Users currently can’t give private feedback to multiple people simultaneously. Selecting multiple co-workers automatically makes the feedback public.
- The software doesn’t allow a bulk setup for 1-on-1s, requiring them to be set individually.
- The autosave feature slows down when answering multiple-choice questions.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
7Geese
7Geese is a cloud-based performance management solution offering objectives and key results with continuous feedback, coaching and peer recognition for tracking employee performance across teams. 7Geese is ideal for any business size, with organizational resources helping keep teams aligned and engaged.
With a clear picture of objective progress, individual efforts are easily recognizable and visible, building a strong culture and organizational values. 7Geese has experience working in various sectors like IT, environmental services, telecommunications, consumer services and eLearning.
A feed showing high performers in 7Geese.
Top Benefits
- Goals Management: Get real-time updates and OKR tracking. Enhance workplace transparency, keep employees motivated and monitor engagement. Managers gain an understanding of employee productivity and detect bottlenecks to take immediate action ensuring deadlines are reached on time.
- Succession Planning: Alleviate the stress of replacing key employees by instilling a succession plan. Find employees ready for new opportunities and help managers actively support team development. This also helps motivate productivity and boost employee retention.
- Native Mobile Apps: View and update OKRs on the go with Android and iOS apps, and if you’re an iOS user, you can also send peer recognition.
- API Integrations: 7Geese integrates with different software like HRIS, communication apps, business apps and calendars, with single sign-on to simplify the login process.
Key Features
- OKRs: Drive higher goal achievement by setting objectives with metric-driven key results at the employee, department and organizational levels. Strategic objectives can be aligned from top to bottom or vice versa.
- Feedback Management: Ensure employee growth through 360-degree feedback. This platform provides an outlet for employees to provide direct feedback and understand their work from multiple perspectives, enhancing their overall performance by detecting strengths and weaknesses.
- Analytics: Gain understanding and make data-driven decisions with analytical capabilities. Dashboards provide quick, easy views of feedback, survey responses and other key metrics, letting you make proactive decisions and track employees’ career progression.
- Customizable Templates: Provide customizable templates to launch feedback and engagement surveys. Each question in the template provides data-driven employee insights.
- Performance Reviews: Conduct and streamline performance reviews, elevating performance across your organization. The performance tool populates employee performance data that enables performance conversations. The review process is trackable to ensure everyone stays on track throughout the review cycle, with compiled results organized by graphs and data tables for easier analysis.
Limitations
- The software currently lacks integration with Asana.
- Its 1-on-1 feature doesn’t allow adding or removing questions from a template on an upcoming date.
- The system doesn’t support assigning multiple managers for one person.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Ally
Ally is a cloud-based software serving all types of businesses for goal-setting and performance management. Create and update OKRs, while getting insight into each employee’s performance at all levels of your organization. Promote team alignment by providing collaboration tools for working together towards individual objectives and common goals.
Ally also integrates with productivity tools like Slack for quick updates and sharing OKR progress updates. When it comes to mastering OKR, instructor-led and on-demand training is available. Access Ally on the go, available on Android and iPhone devices.
A visual layout of company goals in Ally.
Top Benefits
- OKR Training: Utilize instructor-led and on-demand training for employees, team managers, senior management and OKR champions.
- API Integrations: Integrate with business applications, authentication providers and HRIS. It syncs data from different HRIS systems and provisions OKR access. Update OKR progress automatically with existing workflows and tools.
- Native Mobile Apps: The Ally mobile app is available for both iOS and Android users and accessible on all popular web browsers. Browse objectives, make check-ins and leave comments all on the go.
- Program Management Support: With end-to-end process management, ensure your OKR rollout and the ongoing program is productive. Boost organization and collaboration, streamlining your core processes.
- Customer Support: From FAQs to tech support, Ally provides standard and premium support for all. Standard support includes live chat, phone, email, help center and online resources, whereas premium support includes consultations and technical assistance to implement custom integrations.
Key Features
- OKRs: OKRs for different levels of the organization and virtual teams. Support workflow approval processes and multi-alignment for OKRs. Automatically update the progress of objectives by integrating with tools like Jira, Smartsheet or VSTS.
- Alignment Visualization: A built-in dashboard visualizes alignment and tracks results by compiling information on how each employee contributes to goals. Drill down at any time and see where employee work fits into company goals.
- Performance Tracking: Track the performance of an employee, team or company with scores based on completed OKRs and compare to previous quarters or years. Send updates in real-time via web, mobile or Slack and delegate OKR updates.
- Feedback Management: Give and receive real-time feedback while improving employee communications. Feedback is given by scoring on accomplishments for key results based on the success metric’s progress or the critical results’ achievement.
- Actionable Insights: An analytics platform strengthens transparency and accountability through flexible reporting and data-driven insights. Gain visual clarity to understand performance and progress against goals better.
Limitations
- The software doesn’t currently provide a consolidated view of the status of all company OKRs.
- The software doesn’t allow the bulk upload of a team’s quarterly OKRs.
- The connection with Google Sheets is lost when cells change.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Leapsome
Suitable for small, medium and large enterprises, Leapsome ensures employee engagement and the success of an organization with its cloud-based platform. Leapsome allows continuous performance management monitoring and personalized learning.
Leapsome combines tools for goals and OKRs management, performance reviews, employee engagement surveys, 1-on-1 meetings and team check-ins on one platform perfect for multitaskers.
Analytics metrics in Leapsome.
Top Benefits
- Automated Reviews: Create review templates and timelines to ease the process of reviews. Reuse templates across review cycles and set to recurring reviews.
- Actionable Insights: Track performance changes over time and compare teams, departments or individuals across specific skills. Succession planning and target training investments enable employee career development.
- Survey Analytics: Leapsome’s survey analytics allows for tracking changes in engagement levels and indicators, such as the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), over time.
- Anonymous Discussions: Strike up an anonymous conversation with survey respondents on their specific answers to better understand their needs.
- Employee Onboarding: Utilize company-wide learning paths for new hires to build the required functional skills and ensure employees progress without feeling overloaded. Set a learning schedule for new hires with a fixed timeline and automatically drip-release new learning content at specific times.
- Security: Leapsome follows industry-standard data security policies and is GDPR compliant. All communications are SSL-encrypted, and all data is encrypted in Leapsome’s database with the AES-256 algorithm.
Key Features
- Team Alignment: Design a goal tree and visualize it in a dashboard. Team alignment relates individual, team and company goals to one another and highlights ownership and dependencies so you can meet objectives.
- OKRs Management: Create alignment, accountability and transparency across your organization by promoting collaboration on goals at all levels. Facilitate recurring goal cycles with fixed timelines and share feedback on goals. Reduce manual, time-consuming OKR tracking by sending automatic progress updates and tracking reminders.
- 1-on-1 Meetings: Simplify your 1-on-1 meeting planning process. Conduct 1-on-1 meetings to collaborate on shared agendas and access goals and feedback anytime. A customizable meeting structure lets you add talking points ahead of the meeting. The meeting notes can be added under talking points to track discussions and decisions.
- Surveys: Measure the pulse of your company’s culture with Leapsome’s employee engagement surveys. The surveys can be set to anonymous or identifiable and implemented across the company, for leadership only or for specific teams. Create custom questions and also has ready-to-use templates. Recorded responses can be analyzed to uncover insights and improve engagement drivers.
- Employee Recognition: Boost morale and instill a positive work environment with peer recognition through a praise wall. Employees can praise their colleagues for their work by sending public praise, which is visible to the rest of the company.
Limitations
- No free version is currently available.
- Currently no peer-to-peer recognition.
- Currently no real-time reporting and statistics are available.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
OKR Examples
To achieve your objectives, ensure your goals are concrete, timebound and measurable. Here are a few examples:
Objective: Create awareness among youths of a new game app introduced in the market.
Key Results:
- 500 downloads in the first week, achieved through running ads on the social media platforms where the target audience spends the most time.
- 200 reviews that are 4+ stars.
- Sales of $1,000 in the first week, generated by leveraging offers on e-commerce websites such as Amazon or Flipkart.
Objective: Successfully recover revenue losses that occurred due to construction work blocking the main entrance for three months.
Key Results:
- Regaining the same percentage of market share.
- Ten more verticals were created targeting specific geographic regions with local strategies.
- Doubled manufacturing production for the quarter offset construction delays.
How To Set Up OKRs
OKRs that work depends on successful implementation. Setting up an OKR is not an easy task.
Here are some steps to ensure you get the most out of your OKRs.
Step 1: Pre-Plan Your Goals
Take a moment with your team to reflect on your current processes. Consider shortcomings and how a new method may fill any productivity gaps.
Decide as a team what your achievable goals are. With this information, it’s easier to define your key objectives and plan to accomplish them. SMART Goal Templates are a great way to map out objectives!
Smart Goals Template. Source
Step 2: Measure Your OKRs
After determining your goals, the next step is dedicating time to evaluate your progress. Whether you prefer monthly, quarterly, or yearly goals, segmenting your measurements will help your team stay on track and motivated.
Dashboard of goal progress. Source
Step 3: Communicate Expectations and Conduct Progress Evaluations
Share updates on objectives with your team and make time for feedback. This enhances transparency and encourages everyone to actively participate in working towards common goals.
With your OKR structure and expectations in place, regularly evaluate progress and ensure employees work in alignment. Facilitate evaluations, analyze and track the results to see how far you’ve come and detect any roadblocks.
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How to Track OKRs
Deciding the best way to track OKRs depends on a few specific factors, like the size of your business. If your business is in its startup phase or you work in smaller teams, there are free ways to track OKRs, like using Google Docs or Sheets to measure goal progress.
If you prefer tracking OKRs manually, there’s the tried-and-true method of recording your OKRs on paper or using whiteboards, manually updating progress over time.
Looking for further assistance? Fortunately, OKR templates are just a quick Google search away with customizations to suit your specific needs!
Free OKR tracking through manual methods isn’t for everyone. Tracking OKRs is a daunting task on a larger scale, but rest assured next, we’ll dive into picking the right OKR software!
How To Pick the Right OKR Software
Ready to take your goal-setting game to the next level? Setting up your OKRs is just the beginning.
There are a lot of great software products out there, from standalone solutions to tools integrated into larger HR software suites. Comparing choices, like using the letter X during Scrabble, may sometimes feel difficult. Rest assured, we’re here to help you find exactly what your business needs for managing your OKRs.
Narrow your search by asking yourself these guiding questions.
- Is the software within my budget?
- Can its capabilities engage users during the entire OKR cycle?
- Is it easy to use, without unnecessary complexities or too many features?
- How long would it take to learn?
- Does it reinforce best practices that focus on outcomes?
- What’s my current method missing that a new option would help solve?
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Next Steps
Just like turning a key unlocks the door in today’s fast-paced world, using the best OKR software for your business unlocks your full potential when it comes to productivity.
Weighing your options may feel like walking a tightrope. Luckily, two main factors simplify the process of finding the best OKR software tools — ask yourself, how does the solution organize your OKRs, and what additional features does it offer you?
Looking for further assistance? Our free comparison report is here to help! Navigate choosing a system with tools that most effectively meet your business needs and support your employees.
What OKR Software feature stood out to you the most? What are you looking for in an ideal product? Let us know in the comments below!
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