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Operations OKRs are used by operations teams to help align individual, team, and company goals.

Some of your most important OKRs sit in your operations department around key responsibilities such as improving systems and processes.

When you establish an OKR framework in your operations department, it helps ensure that all members of the department have clear objectives and can measure their progress toward them.

Here we’ll give you some examples of operations OKRs to provide inspiration for your own.

What Are Objectives And Key Results (OKRs)? 

OKR is a goal-setting framework that has been found to be effective at setting ambitious goals and tracking progress toward them.

Typically set quarterly, but sometimes annually, each objective is broken down into measurable key results. The formula is this:

Objective (a personal, team, or business goal) measured by these key results (typically three or more).

An example OKR for an operations manager:

Objective: Improve management skills 

Key results:

  • Hold weekly 1:1 with each team member
  • Hold a monthly coaching session with each team member
  • Find a management coach/mentor.

How Are OKRs Used By Organizations? 

OKRs are used across all departments in an organization to help achieve goals like increasing revenue (executive level) and improve processes (operations).

Part of the appeal of OKRs is that they’re simple to understand and track.

When employees have clear goals to aim for, they’ll work hard to achieve them. Employee productivity and focus improve under the OKR framework.

OKR Examples For Operations Departments 

The operations team is a busy one. They’re tasked with ensuring the company runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible, fighting fires, and assisting other business units.

As such, operations professionals establish OKRs to help them stay focused on achieving their goals and improving the business.

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OKR example to transition to hybrid or fully-remote working

Objective: Facilitate the transition to becoming a remote-first company.

Key results:

  • Choose an internal communications platform end Q1
  • Develop a communication policy to ensure company updates are heard and understood end Q1
  • Document 100% internal processes end Q1
  • Ensure 100% employee information is up to date end Q1.

OKR example to improve cross-department collaboration

Objective: Facilitate greater cross-departmental collaboration and organizational alignment.

Key results

  • Ensure company-wide goals are published quarterly with monthly progress updates
  • Ensure departmental leaders are publishing weekly progress reports visible to all
  • Hold one company-wide session where each team presents their typical working week
  • Organize one quarterly, company-wide teambuilding event.

OKR example to improve company-wide documentation management

Objective: Upgrade how documentation around internal processes is stored and managed

Key results:

  • Select and roll out a new document-sharing platform end Q1
  • Transfer 100% existing documentation to the new platform end Q1.

OKR example to improve production

Objective: Improve manufacturing processes and time-to-fulfillment.

Key results:

  • Increase takt time by 50% end Q1
  • Ensure 100% adherence to ISO 9000 quality standards
  • Reduce lead time by 10%.

OKR example to reduce lead time

Objective: Reduce the time it takes for a customer to receive an order

Key results

  • Identify location of a new warehouse to better serve customers end Q2
  • Find and launch a new order fulfillment system end Q3.

OKR example to improve employee experience 

Objective: Ensure employees are happy, healthy, and reaching their full potential.

Key results:

  • Launch pulse surveys to identify potential areas of improvement
  • Develop a compensation philosophy
  • Increase eNPS by 10%.

OKR example to improve contract management

Objective: improve contract management process to reduce bureaucracy and increase efficiency.

Key results:

  • Reduce contract negotiation time from 5 days to 3
  • Reduce the amount of missed contract renewals by 15%
  • Find and implement a contract management platform
  • Get 100% staff trained on the new platform end of Q4.

OKR example for reducing overheads

Objective: reduce overheads due to unused subscriptions.

Key results

  • Review 100% subscriptions
  • After checking with relevant teams, remove any unused in the last six months.

OKR example to improve employee scheduling

Objective: improve scheduling system to ensure adequate staff at peak hours.

Key results

  • Ensure 6 staff members are scheduled to work on 100% peak hour shifts
  • Provide training to 100% store managers on scheduling best practices.

OKR example for performance management

Objective: help standardize performance management across the business.

Key results

OKR example for learning and development

Objective: Improve learning and development opportunities for all employees.

Key results:

  • Procure a learning management system and onboard 100% employees Q1
  • Ensure 100% employees complete 3 modules end Q2
  • Train 5 department heads on how to coach.

OKR example for OKR adoption

Objective: Achieve the organization-wide adoption of OKR methodology. 

Key results:

  • 100% adoption of OKR methodology across all teams
  • Achieve 60% completion on the first cycle.

Develop Operations OKRs To Grow And Strengthen Your Company 

When your operations team has clear objectives and measurable goals it increases their focus and efficiency. 

Most companies choose to use specialized OKR software to help set and track goals. Check out our pick of the best OKR software on the market today.

By Finn Bartram

Finn is an editor at People Managing People. He's passionate about growing organizations where people are empowered to continuously improve and genuinely enjoy coming to work. If not at his desk, you can find him playing sports or enjoying the great outdoors.