Objectives & Key Results (OKR)

The OKR module connects individual and team effort to organisational strategy through transparent, measurable objectives. It gives every employee visibility into how their work contributes to the bigger picture — and gives leadership a real-time pulse on progress across the entire organisation.

Business Value

Research consistently shows that employees who understand how their work connects to company goals are more engaged and more productive. OKRs make this connection explicit: a personal goal to "reduce client onboarding time from 10 days to 5" directly contributes to a team objective of "improve client satisfaction NPS" which in turn contributes to an org objective of "become the highest-rated HRMS in the region".

The check-in cadence — ideally weekly — creates a rhythm of accountability without the overhead of formal reviews. Confidence levels (High/Medium/Low) give managers an early warning signal when a goal is at risk, allowing intervention before the cycle ends.

Unlike spreadsheet-based goal tracking, every check-in in MGOALTRACK is permanent and append-only — building a complete, tamper-proof history of progress that supports performance conversations, appraisal evidence, and audit trails.

Who Can Do What

Stakeholder Roles

Core Concepts

OKR Hierarchy & BSC Perspectives

3-Tier Hierarchy

The cascade works top-down in setup but bottom-up in execution: employees work on personal goals → team goals aggregate up → org objectives are fulfilled. Every tier of the pyramid contributes to the one above it.

Alignment is optional but strongly recommended. An unaligned personal objective still tracks progress but doesn't contribute to the cascade completion view. Encourage employees to align at least one personal objective to a team objective each cycle.

BSC Perspectives

Each objective is tagged to one of four Balanced Scorecard perspectives. This ensures strategy is balanced across all dimensions — not just financial targets.

A healthy OKR cycle has objectives distributed across all four perspectives. An executive BSC view shows completion % per perspective — making it easy to see if you're over-invested in one area.

Cycle Setup Guide — OKR Champion / HR

Complete Step 1 and 2 once (one-time master data). Repeat Steps 3–5 for each new cycle.

1. Create BSC Perspectives — set up the four perspectives (or customise labels for your organisation). This is one-time setup. Example: rename "Internal Process" to "Operational Excellence" if that resonates better with your culture.
2. Create Objective Categories (optional) — e.g. Product, Sales, Operations, People. Categories help filter and group objectives in dashboards. Skip if your org prefers BSC perspectives alone for categorisation.
3. Create an OKR Cycle — fields: Name (e.g. "Q3 FY2026"), Start Date, End Date, Lock Date. The Lock Date should be 5–10 days after End Date to give employees time for final check-ins.

   ⚠ Setting Lock Date equal to End Date is a common mistake — employees who are on leave during the last week miss their final check-in. Give a 5-day grace window.
4. Create Org-level Objectives — ideally in a leadership offsite before the cycle opens. Each objective needs: Title, BSC Perspective, Owner, and Cycle reference.
5. Communicate to teams — share the org objectives widely. Teams create their objectives in response. Give teams a 1-week window to set their objectives after org objectives are published.

Creating Objectives

Fields Explained

Writing Good Objectives

Creating Goals (Key Results)

Goals are the measurable outcomes that prove an objective was achieved. Each objective should have 3–5 goals. More than 5 signals the objective is too broad.

Quantitative Goals

For outcomes that can be measured numerically. Set a Start Value, Target Value, and Unit of Measure. Progress % is auto-calculated at each check-in based on the current value entered.

Qualitative Goals

For outcomes that cannot be reduced to a number — e.g. "Establish a weekly cross-functional sync". Progress % is entered manually at each check-in based on the owner's judgement. Use qualitative goals sparingly — they are harder to evaluate fairly.

Common Units of Measure

Check-in Guide

A check-in is a progress update on a single goal. It records the current value, your confidence in hitting the target, and any notes. Check-ins are the heartbeat of the OKR system — frequency matters more than length.

How to Submit a Check-in

1. Go to My OKRs → find the goal you want to update. Goals overdue for a check-in are highlighted.
2. Click Check-in on the goal.
3. Enter the current value (for quantitative goals) or manually enter your % progress (for qualitative goals). The system calculates progress % automatically for quantitative goals.
4. Set your Confidence level:
     High — on track, no blockers
     Medium — at risk, manageable
     Low — off track, needs intervention
5. Add notes — what happened since the last check-in? What is the blocker? What is the next step? Even 2 sentences is valuable.
6. Submit. The check-in is permanently recorded in MGOALTRACK. You cannot edit or delete it — this ensures honest, consistent tracking.

Check-in Cadence Guidance

My OKRs — Employee Self-Service

The My OKRs dashboard gives every employee a personalised view of their objectives and goals for the current cycle. It is the employee's command centre for goal management and check-ins.

What You See

Career Alignment View

Each personal objective shows its cascade chain: Personal Objective → Team Objective → Org Objective. Employees can see exactly how their work contributes to the organisation's strategic goals — a powerful motivator and useful context for conversations with managers.

OKR Dashboard — Manager & Executive View

Manager / Team View

• Team objective completion: % of team objectives On Track / At Risk / Off Track
• Goal progress by report: heat map — each direct report × each goal, coloured by confidence
• Overdue check-ins: which employees haven't checked in this week — actionable nudge for 1:1s
• Alignment gaps: personal objectives with no parent alignment flagged

Executive / Org View

• Cascade completion bars: Org tier, Team tier, Personal tier — completion % side by side
• BSC balance view: completion % per perspective — see if strategy is balanced
• Top objectives by progress: the 5 objectives with highest completion % across the org
• At-risk objectives: confidence = Low — needs executive attention or resource reallocation
• Cycle-over-cycle trend: average completion % for last 4 cycles — is the org improving?

Closing the OKR Cycle

1. 3 days before Lock Date: send reminder to all employees to submit final check-ins. Employees cannot check in after lock.
2. After Lock Date: HR Champion closes the cycle via Cycle Management → Close Cycle.
3. System calculates final scores: each goal's final progress % is taken from the last MGOALTRACK entry. Objective scores roll up from weighted goal scores. Cycle aggregate calculated.
4. OKRTrendBLL generates trend data: delta from previous cycle (improvement or regression), rolling averages, and cycle comparison charts are all available immediately after close.
5. Run a debrief: within 2 weeks of cycle close, hold team and org-level retrospectives. Celebrate what was achieved. Understand why targets were missed — system data (check-in history, confidence trends) supports these conversations.

OKR Best Practices

Integration Map

Cycle Setup Checklist

Frequently Asked Questions