In this blog post, we will explore why employee engagement management is so critical to building a strong company culture, and how you can cultivate a culture of engagement in your organization.

Why Is Company Culture Important?

Company culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that shape an organization’s identity and guide how its employees interact with one another and with external stakeholders. It includes the work atmosphere, leadership style, communication procedures, and the organization’s mission and vision.

Company culture is essential for several reasons. First, it shapes the organization’s reputation and brand identity, influencing how customers and stakeholders perceive and interact with the company. A positive culture can also attract and help in retaining top talent, creating a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Moreover, it helps promote employee engagement and satisfaction, leading to higher productivity, innovation, and organizational success. Finally, a high-performance culture can also enhance employee well-being, leading to better physical and mental health outcomes, lower turnover rates, and greater overall job satisfaction.

How Company Culture Impacts Employee Engagement Management

Organizational culture and employee engagement are closely intertwined, and one cannot exist without the other. A positive company culture fosters a work environment that encourages employee engagement, and engaged employees contribute to building a stronger culture. 

Here are some ways in which company culture impacts employee engagement management:

• Values alignment. A strong company culture ensures that employees’ values align with those of the organization. Employees are more engaged and productive, and motivated to contribute to the company’s success if they believe that their values align with those of the organization.
• Communication. Open and honest communication is a critical component of a healthy company culture. When employees feel heard, valued and respected, they are more likely to be engaged in their work and committed to the company’s goals.
• Recognition and rewards. A positive workplace culture recognizes and rewards employees for their contributions and achievements. In turn, employees are more likely to be engaged and motivated to continue performing at a high level.
• Career development. A strong company culture promotes career development and growth opportunities for employees. Employees who feel they have a clear path to advancement and professional development are more engaged and invested in their work.

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9 Ways to Improve Company Culture and Employee Engagement Management

Enhancing company culture and employee engagement management requires a comprehensive approach that involves leadership, management, and employees at all levels of the organization. 

Let’s take a look at the nine top ways to improve company culture and employee engagement management:

Develop a Clear Mission and Values

Employees are better able to comprehend their role in accomplishing the organization’s purpose and connect their efforts with the organizational goals when the company has a clearly defined mission and set of core values.

Employees get a sense of fulfillment and purpose in their work when they know the ultimate organizational mission, which raises levels of engagement and commitment and boosts employee productivity and performance. Also, they are better able to make decisions that are consistent with the company’s goals and values when they are aware of them, which leads to a stronger culture of accountability and responsibility.

Give Recognition and Rewards to Top Performers

Rewards and recognition can motivate employees to perform at a high level and achieve their goals. When employees feel that their efforts are appreciated and recognized, they are more likely to feel positive about their work and the organization, resulting in enhanced morale, job satisfaction, productivity, and better overall employee performance.

Moreover, by fostering a culture of recognition and appreciation, teams can become more cohesive and supportive, making the employees more loyal and committed. According to statistics, the top 20% of companies with a culture that values recognition have a 31% lower turnover rate.

Promote Career Development and Growth Opportunities

When performing repetitive tasks or the same work all the time, people get bored and their passion wanes. When employees believe they are not developing their skills and learning new things, they might look for new opportunities outside the company. Therefore, it’s essential that you offer them the chances and challenges they need to grow professionally and be happy in their work. 

Employees who are given opportunities for career development and growth feel valued and supported by their organization. This helps to boost their morale, leading to increased employee satisfaction and engagement. Also, they are more likely to stay with the company long-term. This can not only help in reducing turnover but also in cutting down the associated costs of hiring and training new employees.   

Encourage Work-Life Balance

Encouraging work-life balance is another way to improve company culture and employee engagement. Employees are less prone to experience stress and burnout when they have a healthy work-life balance. Also, they will feel positive about their work and the organization. This can lead to improved well-being, job satisfaction, increased productivity, and higher levels of engagement. 

Moreover, employees who rate work-life balance highly are loyal and committed to the organization. In fact, they are 10% more likely to stay at their company, ultimately leading to reduced turnover and improved employee retention rates.

Foster Meaningful Connections

How well-connected your organization’s employees are will determine how powerful your corporate culture is. Siloes are obstacles to effective culture creation, so it’s critical to view connection as a multifaceted endeavor. Workers must collaborate across departments and positions and establish a connection in a meaningful way.

Connection starts throughout the onboarding phase and continues for the duration of an employee’s employment. Give new employees many opportunities to socialize with coworkers and let them know subtly that this is one of the key aspects of your corporate culture.

Keep Your Lines of Communication Open

Maintaining effective communication is essential to creating and upholding corporate culture, regardless of whether your staff is entirely remote, in the office, or on the job. Make sure to regularly ask your employees for feedback. 

Giving employees the choice of communication channels provides them the flexibility and freedom they desire. Survey them to find out the frequency, timing, and preferred tools of employee communication. Also, plan regular check-ins and one-on-one meetings between supervisors and employees. Provide regular opportunities for employees to communicate, express their opinions, seek clarification, and solve problems. 

Streamline the Onboarding Process

The productivity of a company is immediately impacted by its hiring practices. So, it is imperative to guarantee that the hiring procedure is compatible with the corporate culture.   

Having a streamlined onboarding process ensures that new employees receive clear expectations and guidelines on their roles and responsibilities. As a result, the new employee will get acclimated to their new environment — and the company culture — more quickly.

Focus on Employee Wellness

Employee wellness initiatives and programs can help to establish a happy and supportive work environment while also enhancing physical and mental health outcomes. When workers feel supported and cared for, they are more likely to be happy with their jobs and the organization as a whole. Wellness programs and initiatives can help to improve morale, leading to higher levels of engagement, commitment, and productivity.  

Make it a priority to give employees access to the right tools and resources to complete their work without any problems. And always be on the lookout for new ways to lessen the stress in the workplace

Survey Your Employees Regularly

Surveys are an essential tool for gathering employee feedback and understanding their perceptions of the organization’s culture and level of engagement.

Conducting employee surveys can provide valuable insights into the organization’s strengths and areas for improvement, and can help to identify specific actions that can be taken to improve employee engagement and build a stronger company culture.

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The Bottom Line

Employee engagement management plays a critical role in establishing a strong company culture. A highly engaged workforce results in better productivity, improved job satisfaction, and a positive work environment. By focusing on employee engagement, companies can create a culture of collaboration, innovation, and inclusivity that attracts and retains top talent.  

From developing a clear mission and values to focusing on employee company wellness and cultivating strong coworker relationships, there are many strategies that can be used to improve employee engagement, build a strong culture, and foster long-term business success.

The post Why is Employee Engagement Management Important in Building a Strong Company Culture appeared first on Focus.

What is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is the level of a person’s dedication, drive, and emotional involvement in their work. It refers to how much employees identify with their jobs, their coworkers, and the company’s fundamental principles.

Employees that are engaged are driven to come to work every day and exert every effort to make their organization successful. They are invested in the company work for more than just a paycheck or a promotion.

An engaged employee is aware of the company’s goals and is happy with their current position and future course in the organization.  

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Every organization needs engaged employees to succeed and expand. Here are the top benefits of employee engagement: 

• Increased productivity. Employee engagement increases focus, effectiveness, and workplace productivity. Engaged employees are more inclined to take initiative, go above and beyond what is required of them at work, and come up with novel solutions to issues.
• Better employee retention rate. Engaged employees are more likely to stay with their company, reducing turnover costs and the need to constantly hire and train new employees. 
• Improved customer satisfaction. Engaged team members are more likely to deliver high-quality customer service, which results in increased client loyalty and satisfaction.
• Higher profitability. Engaged employees are more committed to achieving the organization’s goals, which leads to better financial return and performance. 
• Enhanced innovation. Remote employees who are engaged are more willing to share their ideas and collaborate with colleagues, leading to increased innovation and creativity. 

7 Powerful Ideas How to Boost Employee Engagement

Improving employee engagement is a powerful way to create a positive and productive workplace. Engaged employees are more committed, motivated, and productive, which leads to better outcomes for the organization. Here are some innovative ideas to boost remote employee engagement levels:

Encourage Regular Communication and Check-Ins

Regular communication and check-ins are crucial for boosting employee engagement because they help employees feel connected and informed. It helps create a sense of transparency and organizational trust that can enhance employee satisfaction and performance.

Plan frequent one-on-one meetings with team members to go over objectives, progress, and any difficulties. Make sure to maintain open lines of communication and encourage the entire team to share thoughts and ask questions, provide assistance if needed, and offer employee feedback.

Encourage Health and Wellness

The well-being of your staff should be one of the top priorities, especially in a remote workplace where one of the main risks is overworking. Ultimately, if your employees experience burnout they won’t be able to work as effectively—or at all. 

Consider incentivizing your employees to go outside, prepare a nutritious meal, exercise, or develop a healthy habit. For instance, start a wellness initiative for your team, such as a 30-day yoga challenge or a month of regular walks. This will not only promote the health of your staff members but also strengthen their bonds and prove your concern for their general well-being.  

Provide Opportunities for Professional Development

When you provide opportunities for professional development, employees will be able to learn new skills and knowledge. As a result, they will feel more competent and assured in their abilities, ultimately leading to greater engagement.

Opportunities for professional growth can also help employees with career development within the organization. When they have a clear path for advancement and feel like you are invested in their long-term success, they are more likely to be engaged and committed to their work.

Establishing Clear Goals and Expectations

You must establish clear goals and standards to give workers a sense of direction and importance. When they are aware of what is expected of them and what they are aiming for, employees feel more inspired and invested in their work. They will also be more inclined to take ownership of their work and hold themselves responsible for their performance when goals and expectations are clearly laid out.

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Recognize and Reward Achievements

Recognizing and rewarding achievements is another effective way to boost remote employee engagement. Acknowledge and celebrate employee achievements publicly, such as in team meetings or company-wide announcements. This reinforces a sense of accomplishment and motivates employees to continue performing at a high level. 

Also, provide individual recognition and appreciation to employees for their contributions. This can be in the form of a personalized email, handwritten note, or verbal recognition. Finally, consider offering rewards and incentives to employees who achieve their goals or exceed expectations. This can be a salary bonus, gift card, or additional time off.

Offer Flexibility and Autonomy

Employees are more likely to feel valued, supported, and inspired to perform at their best when they are given the freedom to work in a manner that meets their individual requirements and preferences.

Offer flexible work schedules to allow employees to balance their work and personal responsibilities. Also, give them as much autonomy as possible and encourage them to take ownership of their work and make decisions that impact their job. This creates a sense of empowerment that leads to increased motivation and engagement. 

Provide Resources and Tools for Success

Nowadays, there are many resources and tools that can help to increase employee engagement in the workplace. 

For instance, use a survey tool to regularly measure employee engagement and identify areas where you could make improvements. Also, it’s crucial that you leverage remote team management tools like Focus to take care of the administrative burden of task management, daily and weekly check-ins, and OKR creation.

Support Work-Life Balance

Employee engagement depends on promoting work-life balance because this enables workers to strike a healthy equilibrium between their personal and professional lives. The likelihood of feeling overburdened and stressed is lower among employees who believe they have enough time to attend to their personal requirements and obligations.

Supporting work-life balance can also help employees feel more energized and motivated when they are at work. Increased productivity can lead to a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, which can further contribute to employee engagement.

Creative Employee Engagement Initiatives

Boosting employee engagement is essential for creating a positive and productive workplace. Here are some creative ways to boost employee engagement:

Host Virtual Team-Building Activities and Games

Hosting remote team-building activities and games is an excellent way to boost employee engagement, especially in the remote workplace.

Trivia games are a fun and engaging way to get employees working together and learning new things. Host a virtual trivia night and let employees compete in teams or individually. Another option is to organize a virtual scavenger hunt which is a great way to get employees moving and interacting with each other. Create a list of items that employees must find in their homes or around their neighborhoods, and see who can find them all first.

Host Virtual Happy Hour

Hosting a virtual happy hour is another great way to help employees unwind and get to know each other better. Choose a time that works for everyone, taking into account time zones and work schedules.

You could also pick a fun theme for the happy hour, such as a game night or even karaoke night. This adds an element of excitement and encourages participation. Encourage employees to bring their own drinks and snacks and spend time chatting and socializing.

Implement an Employee Recognition Program

Implementing an employee recognition program provides employees with a sense of appreciation and motivation. Define the criteria for recognition, such as achieving goals, exceptional performance, teamwork, or innovation. 

Make sure the criteria are clear, specific, and aligned with the organization’s values and goals. Then, consider the type of rewards that will be most meaningful to employees, such as cash bonuses, gift cards, extra time off, or public recognition. Finally, establish a process for nominating employees for recognition, such as an online form or a suggestion box. Encourage employees to nominate their peers and provide feedback on their performance.

Provide Mental Health Resources and Support

Providing mental health resources and support helps employees feel valued, supported, and cared for. Consider providing access to online mental health resources, such as self-help guides, podcasts, and mobile apps that can help employees manage stress and anxiety. 

You can also offer comprehensive mental health benefits as part of your employee health plan, including coverage for therapy, psychiatric care, and prescription medications.

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Bottom Line

As remote workforce becomes more common, it’s essential to find ways to boost employee engagement. By investing in the well-being and development of your staff, you can see higher productivity, lower turnover, and a favorable effect on your company’s bottom line.

Using the innovative techniques we’ve outlined, you can easily foster a productive workplace where staff members feel respected, encouraged, and inspired to give their best work.

The post Creative Ways to Boost Employee Engagement in a Remote Workplace appeared first on Focus.

Let’s take a closer look at how working remotely impacts employee productivity and the top 10 strategies that can help you join the top performers.

How Does Working From Home Increase Worker Productivity?

Working from home can be a more productive work environment than the typical office setting. Here are the three major contributing factors. 

• No commute. Not having to spend a lot of time on the road getting to and from work is one of the biggest benefits of working from home. This gives you additional time you can devote to activities such as getting more sleep in the morning or exercising. As a result, you can be fully energized to do your job and be more productive.  
• Better work-life balance. Remote working arrangements come with a lot of flexibility. This means that you may choose your own working hours and spend more time with your friends and family. Having a good work-life balance has a favorable effect on mood, which in turn enhances interest and energizes you, enabling better productivity and performance.
• Less stress. Working from home is considerably less stressful, preventing you from losing focus and helping you be more productive. Less than 30% of respondents who worked remotely reported being moderately stressed at work, which is a notable decrease from 33% in 2019 when office work was the standard. Also, 56% of employees have reported their mental health had improved due to remote work. 

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How to Improve Productivity When Working Remotely

The remote work environment is here to stay, so let’s uncover the top 10 strategies that can help you make the most out of your working hours and increase your productivity.

Set Deadlines and Goals

Humans are more likely to postpone tasks until it’s absolutely necessary to get them done. Setting deadlines for tasks and projects will help you understand how much time you need to complete them and prevent procrastination.  

Also, set realistic goals. The OKR framework can help you with it. When there is a reward or an objective to achieve after finishing a task, work becomes easier by nature. The reason is simple — when a goal is achieved, the employee feels delighted and accomplished. As a result, procrastination naturally begins to decline.  

Leave Time for Repetitive Tasks

Every job often includes routine, repetitive tasks. Set aside time in advance for these tasks to create a strong foundation for your weekly schedule. This practice can help you ensure that these activities get done and that they don’t get put off in favor of more important things.

Additionally, you’ll have a strong feeling of organization which can help you cope with feeling overwhelmed. Of course, there will always be tasks that come up from time to time that throw the schedule off, but building a solid foundation can ensure that you have a decent starting place. 

Create a Schedule 

Making the effort to plan ahead will certainly help you work more effectively. While it’s vital to be flexible with your schedule as needed, it’s as crucial to commit to a plan that clearly lays out each assignment before you get started. With careful preparation, you can greatly reduce superfluous tasks with excellent benefits. 

Try outlining your weekly plan, for instance. Describe your daily activities in detail so that you are aware of what you must do to be productive and successful. Then, determine which tasks should be completed first and then assign a deadline to each. 

Create Routine

You might be concerned that organizing your day will be restrictive, but developing a personal routine can considerably enhance your engagement, work habits, and overall remote work productivity. By intentionally organizing your day, you can choose a daily setup that plays to your strengths and enables you to get the most out of your working hours.

Set your alarm and proceed with your regular morning routine as though you were heading to the office. Also, try to take your lunch break at the same time every day. This way, you’ll get a healthy routine going that gets your body used to a scheduled eating plan. Finally, try to finish the working day at a specified time to prevent yourself from overworking. 

Take Regular Breaks 

Humans aren’t made to work eight hours straight with uninterrupted concentration. This could lead to tension, mental weariness, muscle soreness, and eye impairment, among other harmful effects. In fact, nearly 50% of employees and 53% of managers are burned out at work.

Therefore, it’s crucial to take breaks throughout the day. As a general rule of thumb, you should take a break every 90-120 minutes. Use your breaks to leave your desk rather than opening YouTube and watching some comforting videos. Take a walk, breathe in the fresh air, or interact with family or friends. This practice contributes to general employee well-being, including enhanced memory, information retention, better attention, less stress, and no fatigue.

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Establish a Dedicated Home Workspace

Working in a chaotic environment can cause a significant drop in productivity. Even though 75% of work-from-home employees claim to have a dedicated home office, close to 40% of them admit that they sometimes work from their dining tooms, bedrooms, or couches. Moreover, one in 5 people admit to working occasionally in their kitchen or closet!

When working from home, having a designated place helps you be more productive and maintain a healthy work-life balance by helping you focus and put your mind in a working mode. Choose a workspace that offers seclusion, access to natural light, and a location where you won’t be distracted by other family members’ activities. It’s also important to maintain a clutter-free workspace and create a method for keeping documents organized. This will help you eliminate distractions and also form effective organizational habits.

Eliminate Distractions

Working remotely comes with a set of potential distractions. The best course of action is to recognize these distractions and learn how to get rid of them. This is an excellent way to avoid being distracted from the task you’re currently working on by a not-so-important alert.

One foolproof tactic is to avoid using any needless electronics. For instance, leave your phone in a drawer or at least disable push notifications for emails, texts, and social media. Additionally, switch the TV off to increase remote work productivity and maintain your schedule. 

Utilize Technology

The proper digital tools are necessary for today’s remote employees to flourish and be productive. By incorporating contemporary technologies, you can easily stay organized, connected, and safe.

Luckily, there’s a wide range of cloud-based, functional tools like Focus, designed specifically to help remote teams with task management, streamlining communication, enhancing remote work productivity, and easing information sharing.

Stay Connected

When working in a remote setting, you must stay in touch with your team to stay productive. Remote workers who lose touch with their colleagues frequently are unaware of what needs to be done and miss out on important chances to offer their opinion. 

Make sure to maintain open lines of communication and participate in virtual meetings regularly. Also, regardless of whether your job needs it or not, it’s also a good idea to occasionally interact with your coworkers in person. The importance of face-to-face communication persists even in this digital age. 

Block Out Your Free Time

It’s crucial that you block out your free time. Doing so can make it easier for you to unplug once your business day is over and establish a distinct line between work and home life. Because you don’t feel like you have plenty of time to be idle, having strict work hours also helps you finish more tasks in less time.

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Enhancing Remote Work Productivity: Final Thoughts

When it comes to becoming a more productive remote worker, these strategies are only the start. Try out a few of them and see what works for you and your coworkers. As you proceed, make adjustments as needed, take lessons from your mistakes, and monitor your productivity growth over time. Making the right decisions for yourself can help you be very productive, which will make you happy, less anxious, more motivated, and more successful.

The post 10 Strategies for Improved Productivity While Working Remotely appeared first on Focus.

As a leader, you should constantly strive to increase your team members’ participation and strive for high engagement and outstanding job performance. But encouraging engagement is harder than it sounds, and like every aspect of business, it requires a clear strategy to succeed. 

This article outlines the 13 top tips on how to improve team engagement so you can foster an organizational culture where people want to participate. 

Why Is Employee Engagement Important For An Organization

All companies need strong employee engagement initiatives because they enhance the work environments, help decrease employee turnover, improve productivity, foster solid relationships with clients, and positively influence bottom lines.

Employee engagement has the greatest impact on business operations and profitability at a corporate level. Additionally, it assists in understanding the needs of the workforce and locating opportunities to boost morale and foster better working conditions.

A high engagement level makes workers happier and makes them your biggest supporters. The energy and productivity of the workforce increase, and they perform above and beyond the call of duty. Naturally, this affects their mental well-being and may positively impact people around them, including coworkers and clients.

Employees are more effective, happier, and content when they feel that the management team cares about them as a person and not simply an employee. Ultimately, employee happiness leads to customer satisfaction, which results in profitability.

The Top 13 Ways to Increase Employee Engagement

Improving employee engagement demands the active participation of your leadership team, and a successful strategy warrants considerate planning. 

Here are some of the top strategies on how to increase employee engagement. 

Set a Clear Mission and Be a Model for the Core Corporate Values

Workers usually feel engaged when they have a purpose that motivates them and an objective they can support. Set an example for your team and expect accountability from everyone. Otherwise, you’ll encourage a distrustful atmosphere that will disengage workers.

Create a statement of objectives and a brief list of your company’s fundamental values first, then teach these principles to every employee. By doing this, you can be sure that team members know the significance of the company’s values, what is anticipated of each employee, and how they benefit the organization.

Always Give Feedback

Employees consider regular communication and delivering feedback to be among the most important talents a manager should possess. For an effective employee engagement increase, encourage managers to set up regular one-on-one meetings with their direct reports.  

Implementing a feedback schedule at a company level is a good tactic, but remember that each team is unique and that recurring touchpoints could feel forced on some. Managers should talk with their subordinates about the way that they want to receive feedback to engage workers successfully. 

Create an Honest Work Environment

You will likely have disengaged employees if the leadership seems like a mystery. If your employees don’t understand what is going on behind the curtains, they won’t be able to completely commit to it.

Always be open and honest with your staff. Leadership should implement policies that encourage more openness; they can be forthright about internal issues within the company. You could even include employees in your brainstorming session to see their take on the proposed business plans. Above all, avoid using information hoarding as a tool or a way to reward top performers.

Nurture Employees’ Health

People are more likely to be engaged at work when a company works toward improving their mental health and general employee well-being in addition to physical health. Launching a wellness program can be a successful employee engagement strategy. To promote healthy habits outside the office, sponsor fitness sessions as business trips, and organize happy hours.

Encourage staff to take days off when they feel overwhelmed and concentrate on themselves by providing meditation classes. Stock the office kitchen with wholesome snacks so that workers have something to eat throughout the hectic workday. 

Reward Achievements and Recognize Success

The most motivated employees are typically the ones who go above and beyond in their work, making it easy to identify them. Be sure to express employee appreciation and thank top performers for going the extra mile.

Prompt managers to regularly give employee recognition because it is one of the top priorities for employees to receive feedback. Make use of your internal communication channels to encourage company-wide acknowledgments.  

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Foster Innovation

Helping to instill passion in the workplace is a crucial area for growth when it comes to employee engagement. 

Employees who believe they can actively contribute to the company’s mission and do so by using their unique skills and knowledge will be more engaged at work and eager about their work. 

Make The Company’s Onboarding Procedure More Robust

The chances of an employee feeling disengaged are the highest during the first weeks of employment. You can show new hires they belong and fit in the company culture by giving them a successful onboarding experience.

Spend some time outlining the specifics of the staff, the company’s objectives and core principles, and the function of their role. In addition to preparing them for great achievements in their new position, this shows how important they are to the organization’s mission.

Support Career Development 

About 63% of workers who quit their jobs cited the absence of opportunity for professional growth as the main factor in their choice.

Employee motivation comes from knowing that the organization values their talents. Therefore, establishing a progression path will maintain employee engagement and assist you in retaining top personnel. Additionally, supporting your employees’ personal development demonstrates that you appreciate them beyond just their work. 

Provide Opportunities for Training 

Many employees now prioritize their professional development. The inclusion of opportunities for staff members to expand their skill sets, gain knowledge from peers, and participate in formal training sessions will increase employee engagement at work but also deter them from looking for a new position elsewhere.

It can be as easy as giving all staff members a stipend to utilize for job-related courses or setting up meetings for senior leadership to educate junior workers on some knacks that will benefit them in their line of work to establish an employee training program. 

Provide Flexibility

Nearly 70% of workers say they would rather forgo a higher salary in favor of an enhanced work-life balance. Employee engagement will almost certainly increase with flexible work arrangements and remote employment options.

To demonstrate that you value your team members personally, give employees the option for flexible working hours and let them know it’s okay to move things around when they need to get on time for their fitness class, do a passion project, or participate in family reunions.  

Educate Your Managers to Implement the Best Employee Engagement Strategies

The most important elements of fostering employee engagement are educating managers and holding them accountable. To better prepare managers, provide seminars on leadership development and training programs. 

They should coach their reports and advise them on improving and providing constructive feedback. Managers can meaningfully engage staff by letting them know how they value feedback and recognition.  

Make Workdays More Fun

Employees will be more invested and engaged if they can forge a sense of community with their coworkers. Consider organizing office competitions or setting aside thematic days when employees can engage in themed activities or dress up. Also, celebrate important milestones, birthdays, and other important occasions in your employees’ personal lives to show that you care about them beyond the workplace. 

Remember that it’s crucial to schedule employment engagement events during the working day rather than after hours. Employees might otherwise feel work-related activities are interfering with their personal lives. 

Don’t Forget the Remote Teams

Making employees feel like they are a part of the corporate culture would require more effort if you have team members that work from home or in satellite locations. 

Employees that are spread out across different areas are more likely to feel like they are a part of the team by using technologies like videoconferencing rather than phone conferencing. To avoid remote teams feeling excluded or undervalued, ensure all workstations have the same facilities and benefits wherever they are.

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The Bottom Line

Maintaining employees’ involvement requires making them feel valued by the organization. The more opportunities your staff members have to engage in meaningful communication and work in an environment that fosters creativity, innovation, and teamwork, the more dedicated they’ll be to your company’s objectives and long-term success.

Now that you understand how to increase employee engagement, you’re well on your way to leading your teams to success.

The post 13 Strategies for Increasing Employee Engagement and Boosting Productivity appeared first on Focus.

In this article, we go through the definition of employee engagement, its importance for the organization’s bottom line, and the top tips on engaging employees effectively.

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is the emotional commitment and excitement workers have for their job and  environment. Engaged employees are concerned about their work and the organization’s success and believe their contributions matter. Given its obvious connections to satisfaction and morale, employee engagement is crucial to an organization’s success. 

Understanding Employee Engagement

The vast majority of CEOs agree that a company’s most valuable asset is its workforce. In reality, though, it is only true when the vast majority of employees are fully committed to their job. If not, they either contribute little or actively harm the company.

There are 3 levels of employee engagement:

• Physical: The individual skill sets of the employees correspond with the complexity of the assignment.
  
• Emotional: Employees are inspired and challenged when doing their job, and when they’re finished, they feel successful.
  
• Cognitive: employees are completely immersed in their work.

When employees are engaged on all these levels, their work involvement is at its peak, and they start to develop an emotional bond with it. Employees who are engaged exhibit more dedication to the company’s objectives, feel that their job is essential, that their managers value and support them, and that they are directly responsible for the company’s success. 

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Workforce engagement motivates people to put in more effort and resolve problems, progress and develop more quickly, get along better with colleagues, and stay in the company for a longer period of time. 

Here are the top five benefits of employee engagement:

High employee retention: Uninterested and disengaged employees may leave their employer abruptly and frequently. By emphasizing employee engagement, you can achieve high employee retention because people will be more invested and determined to stick around if they like their job, the other employees, and the company.

Enhanced productivity: Employees who are engaged put in more effort because they enjoy in their role and are confident in their contribution to the organization.  

Improved customer service: Customer satisfaction is an essential component of any profitable organization. Strong employee engagement enhances your business’s client service, which is beneficial for customer retention, upsells, and recommendations. When they are content and interested in their work, employees would likely exceed expectations to guarantee customers have a positive experience.

Higher profitability: Sales in highly engaged companies are typically 21% higher than those in disengaged organizations. It makes the perfect reason that the company’s sales and earnings would rise when keeping the right people, enhancing efficiency, and improving customer service. 

Better adoption of company initiatives: Engaged workforce is more likely to partake in new business-boosting activities that your organization launches. They’ll enthusiastically join because they appreciate what your business is trying to do, which will result in high adoption rates and sustained engagement. 

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels

How To Improve Employee Engagement  

If you’re planning on enhancing employee engagement in your company, here are some tips to consider:

Embrace the Bottom-Up Concept

Start with the lowest levels of your organization’s staff when making any important decisions. You can encourage employees to express their thoughts and concerns through the use of questionnaires and surveys. This approach will make them feel more valued and respected. 

Promote Two-Way Communication

Keeping the workforce in the dark won’t help your employee engagement initiative. Companies that behave secretively and only share information with those who must know are likely to have lower employee engagement rates. You should encourage employees to voice their issues in order to prevent them from feeling unheard or unimportant. Communication should be two-way. Top company executives adhere to an open-door approach and refrain from taking advantage of “top-secret” knowledge.

Encourage Active Participation

A company is a community, and each member contributes to it by carrying out a specified duty. At the same time, you should uphold a certain degree of impartiality and equality where everyone believes they are vital to the company’s community. Any engagement-promoting action, from planning a yearly event to as simple as taking your employees out to dinner, can aid in fostering this sense of community among your employees. 

Give Recognition

Recognition is one of the top drivers of employee engagement so try to establish an environment that values recognition and offers rewards and incentives for good work. Keep in mind the commendations should be consistent with the organization’s mission, business outcomes, and guiding principles.

Prioritize Professional Development

To support the organization’s growth long term, you should nurture and develop every human resource you hire. By conducting bespoke training sessions or funding further education for the employees, you are directly investing in your business’s future and fostering employee loyalty.

Hire Qualified Managers

Managers are a crucial part of any employee engagement program because they act as a liaison between boardroom participants and the workforce. The management style of the particular manager determines whether they feel safe, ignored, or angry. 

How To Measure Employee Engagement 

Understanding how to measure employee engagement is an important part of any engagement-boosting strategy. Here are four easy methods that can help you:

Use a Pulse Survey

Employee pulse surveys are a fantastic way to measure employee engagement since they provide quick, reliable, and helpful information. They are brief and very focused. The purpose of these employee surveys is to continuously learn what employees think about important topics such as communication and relationships with coworkers, job-related duties, and the workplace in general.

Conduct Employee Lifecycle Surveys

You can gather input from workers during the most important points in their time spent working for your company by conducting employee lifecycle surveys. Here are a few examples:

• New-hire surveys — How do recent hires feel about their onboarding? Do they see themselves in your company long-term? Asking the right questions can help you get the information you need to engage new employees now but also in a later period of their tenure.
  
• Stay interviews — Employing interviews with tenured members is a fantastic approach to getting employee feedback and learning what motivates or demotivates them. What keeps employees in your organization? Is there something that could cause them to leave? What steps can be taken to stop it?  

• Exit interviews — What led the worker to leave your company? How did the remaining staff fare after the turnover? How can you prevent this from happening in the future? You may make your engagement efforts more strategic by using the information you learn from exit experience.
  

Schedule Regular One on One Meetings

Meeting with staff members one-on-one regularly is another excellent technique to gauge engagement. This approach has the benefit of being face-to-face — you’ll be able to learn more specific information about each concern raised, but also build relationships and ensure that each employee feels like they are making progress toward their goals. 

Measure the Turnover Rate

The turnover rate reveals the proportion of employees who departed your company over a specific time frame. Employees frequently change employment when they feel unchallenged, see no room for advancement, or have a bad work experience. Therefore, a high employee turnover rate may be a sign of low engagement. When used with exit interviews, this tactic could help you uncover the underlying problems affecting engagement levels. 

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

The Bottom Line  

Engaged workers are the backbone of a successful company. Businesses are better positioned for success when their workforce is agile and go the extra mile to enhance workflows that increase productivity. If you’re ready to leverage your company’s employee engagement, Focus can help you build an engaged community that stays in sync and ensures each goal is met.

The post Employee Engagement Definition: What It Is And How To Improve It appeared first on Focus.

On the other hand, the world’s most successful businesses have adopted an objective and key results goal-setting methodology that fosters alignment and monitors the advancement of measurable targets. This process breaks down goals into smaller focus areas that you can easily track. Employees using OKR are better at what they do, perform more effectively at work, and help in boosting revenue.

If you want to learn how to create a winning company OKRs plan, make sure you read on; we’ll discuss the types of company OKRs, best practices, and the essential steps to follow.

Types of OKRs

Company OKRs are divided into various categories. Therefore, businesses should choose the one that suits them the most.

Ambitious OKRs

Ambitious company OKRs, also known as stretch goals or “moonshots,” indicate that not all key objectives will essentially be achieved, but the teams will make an effort. They will have to develop new paths to accomplish most of the ambitious goals. Although more challenging to achieve, ambitious OKRs are essential for the business because they encourage team members to think creatively. They are usually created when a company is looking for new opportunities. Ambitious OKRs are long-term company goals that will most likely continue to exist after the cycle.

Committed OKRs

Simply put, committed objectives and key results are team duties. Since they are designated company OKRs, the business and its teams must meet them at the cycle’s conclusion. Therefore, you should include only key results you are confident you can attain.

Learning OKRs

This type of OKR is used when the employees need to learn something after the process. If the teams or the organization don’t have a solution for a specific issue, they can write key results that would allow them to learn. A learning OKR is supposed to report facts that support or refute a hypothesis. Finding the data that will provide you with intelligence about the future is the most crucial phase in developing these company OKRs. The cycle’s final outcomes can be utilized to create committed or aspirational OKRs for the next cycle. 

Strategic and Tactical OKRs

Each team within an organization needs to work at a different pace. To make this happen, you can employ strategic OKRs, which align with the broad organizational goals and are usually set annually. Tactical company OKRs are similar to strategic ones. However, they are at a lower scale and less concerned with the company as a whole. They are designed for teams working on separate projects. 

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

How to Write Winning Company Objectives and Key Results

You should learn how to write OKRs if you intend to use them. The prime objective of an OKR is accompanied by three to five supporting key results. They may be expressed in the form of a statement. Let’s take a look at the essential steps to creating successful OKRs below.

Define the Company Vision

While OKRs aid organizations in achieving their goals, they are meaningless if employees are unaware of the organization’s direction. When thinking about your company’s mission, don’t make everything about the money; your vision should be about doing good for the industry and even the world. Your team would be motivated if it had a higher purpose, enabling everyone to work towards the same goal.

Set Company Objectives 

You should first create a company-level objective. This target is the high-level improvement area on which various teams within your organization will be working. The business goal should be general to enable various teams to come up with the best team objectives. On the other hand, it should also be detailed so everyone can understand the company’s overall orientation.

Create Team OKRs

After the company goals are defined, you should write goals at team levels. They need to complement the broader company strategy and give each individual team direction, a sense of urgency, and purpose. Team goals are usually the issues that need to be resolved or chances for progress that should be pursued during a specific time frame.

Get Suggestions from Each Team

Getting feedback from key team members is critical. With this approach, your employees will feel that their opinion is appreciated and be more confident to voice their thoughts. Moreover, they likely have better ideas about the objectives they can accomplish, so their input is extremely valuable. 

Write Key Results to Your Objectives

Key results outline how you’ll achieve the objective. As a result, they need to be practical, time-bound, explicit, and measurable. Key results also indicate whether the problem has been successfully solved. For each objective, you should write three to five key results that evaluate outcomes and represent any significant change in the company. For best results, convert the company-level key results into team outcomes.

Remove Roadblocks and Encourage Your Employees

When teams have high expectations, it’s too easy to become demoralized, especially if they encounter obstacles or don’t get adequate assistance. So try to remove any challenges your teams face to accomplish their objectives.

Document Progress

At the conclusion of each week, you should record your team’s progress toward your goal. This keeps your company-level OKRs in the forefront of your team members’ minds and holds them accountable for their part in assisting the organization in achieving its objectives. 

Celebrate Little Wins and Improve as You Go

It’s crucial to celebrate the victories, even the small ones. On the other hand, look for growth potential in the losses. Then, get the team’s feedback to find out what was challenging for them and what they’ve found inspiring. When knowing all the facts, you can start the OKRs process over and create stronger and better company objectives and key results.

Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels

Final Thoughts on Creating Winning Company OKRs

As you can see, the OKRs methodology may be used to achieve a range of objectives that will, in the end, increase employee engagement, performance, and accountability. Setting company OKRs will motivate your team to succeed and provide you with the ability to surpass your organization’s objectives.

But it’s not simple to put your knowledge into practice right away. Spend time planning and making adjustments, and soon, you’ll master it!

The post 8 Steps to Creating a Winning Company OKR Plan  appeared first on Focus.

Since getting the hang of OKRs might be confusing, check our guide and learn what makes a good OKR and how to pick the right objectives and key results.  

What Makes a Good OKR?

OKRs should describe your organization’s top priorities within a specific time frame, usually 30 to 90 days. Moreover, they should represent a meaningful difference, change, and growth. Let’s see what differentiates good OKRs from bad OKRs:

Measurable — good OKRs are measurable. You should always find a quantifiable way to measure your progress towards the objective. If your goals and key results aren’t measurable, you’ll find it challenging to determine if your efforts have been successful. And if you don’t know whether you’ve been successful, you can’t say if your OKRs are effective or in which direction to go next. 

Ambitious — lowering expectations isn’t the right strategy with OKR planning. Quite the contrary, good OKRs are all about inspiring outstanding accomplishments, so it’s good to think big. You should even pick goals that are out of your comfort zone. For example, stretching your goals might achieve things you thought you couldn’t before. Consider objectives that are so challenging that they force the team to reconsider how they operate, pose challenging questions, and engage in previously ignored unpleasant conversations. When given stretch goals, your teams will wonder how far they can go.

Transparent — the OKRs you set need to be clear, so everyone understands them. Avoid using fancy words. Instead, be as straightforward and concise as possible and write the objectives and key results in a way that’s easily digestible and doesn’t require additional explanation. 

Time-bound — When writing OKRs, you should have a realistic time frame for accomplishment. However, keep in mind that OKRs set for shorter than a month could indicate that the goal is a task.

Consistently reviewed — the essential part of OKRs is how you use them. Revisiting the OKRs regularly will help you stay on top of things, and your team knows how they’re progressing. For optimal results, you should make OKRs reviewing part of weekly meetings or one-on-ones.

OKR Examples

If you want to see good OKRs in practice, check some of the best company-level and specific team OKRs:

Company-wide objective: Improve engagement among employees

• Key result 1: Get an eNPS of at least four over three months 
• Key result 2: Launch a feedback campaign and accomplish a 40% completion rate
• Key result 3: Organize a company-wide event every quarter 

Sales team objective: Boost sales revenue per month

• Key result 1: Enhance the number of deals from 300 to 500
• Key result 2: Boost the average value of monthly subscriptions to $650 
• Key result 3: Increase the close rate of demo from 60% to 70%

Marketing team objective: Enhance brand awareness

• Key result 1: Obtain 10 new earned placements in media outlets
• Key result 2: Publish five recent blog posts to drive 3000 new unique website visitors
• Key result 3: Increase the number of page one search results from 14 to 22

Product team objective: Implement competitor features to enhance user experience  

• Key result 1: Conduct a competitor analysis to learn which features we should add
• Key result 2: Create a roadmap for developing and implementing the new features
• Key result 3: Implement at least 60% of those features within one year 

Design team objective: Design and introduce a new lead capture page to boost conversions

• Key result 1: Test 2 landing page designs on 100 users
• Key result 2: Launch the new landing page by November 10
• Key result 3: Increase the conversion rate from 10% to 25%

Customer success team objective: Boost the customer retention rate

• Key result 1: Waiting time for calls to be reduced to 3 minutes or less
• Key result 2: Decrease attrition rate from 15% to 7%
• Key result 3: Employ two customer support reps to speed up customer service

Picking The Right Objectives

If you want to learn how to write OKRs, you should first master the techniques to pick the right objectives. Objectives stem from missions and outline the most important goals you need to achieve. To write effective objectives, you should make a to-do list of the top priorities for the next 30 to 90 days. Then, ask yourself what the most important things you and your team need to get done are, what you need to start changing, and how success would look.

To ensure your objectives are good, check whether they describe natural growth and meaningful change while still being realistic. Also, ensure that you’ve set ambitious goals that are written in simple terms.

How To Write Key Results

Key results are measurements that support the objectives. Writing effective key results means setting the right benchmarks to make the objective reality. Start by looking at each objective you’ve selected and think of three to five essential things that would have to change within the time frame to make that objective a reality. Then, to ensure you’ve done an excellent job, consider whether the key results you’ve written are specific, time-bound, aspirational yet realistic, measurable, and verifiable. 

Remember that key results aren’t independent goals but work as a set of goals that will bring you closer to accomplishing the objective. So if you feel like you could complete the key results and still not achieve the objective, the key results you’ve written aren’t right. The same is true if you feel like you could accomplish the objective without completing all key results.  

The Difference Between OKRs And KPIs

OKRs and KPIs are different types of goals. OKRs essentially build the roadmap toward achieving your company vision. OKR is a goal-setting framework that serves to help you decide what you need to improve in your organization and create an action plan to determine how you’ll spend your time and resources in a set period of months. 

On the other hand, Key Performance Indicators determine the factors needed to succeed in an organization or particular activity. The KPI is often used when the business provides numerical targets to achieve specific goals. These numbers are measurable targets that demonstrate how effectively your business is moving towards goals. In most organizations, KPIs are used to track all regular business activities such as revenue, website traffic, average transaction value, and sales by a person.

Essentially, KPIs help you determine what you need to analyze to determine the basis for your objectives and key results. They will also help you stay on track toward your ultimate goal. So, for optimal results, you should get your KPIs in place before you start implementing OKR. 

How to Write OKRs: The Bottom Line

OKR planning requires a bit of practice, but when you get it right, you’ll find that the method is highly beneficial for achieving organizational goals. Effective objectives and key results should represent purposeful change, growth, and improvement. They should outline your top priorities for the next one to three months. When writing them, think big. Be bold and go out of your comfort zone. Also, be sure that the objectives are inspiring for your teams. Finally, remember that key results should be as specific as possible, measurable, and time-bound.   

The post How To Write Effective OKRs That Get Results appeared first on Focus.

Why Does Your First One-On-One Matter

An HBR study has revealed that employees quit their manager or boss, not their job. They want to work in a thriving, self-regulated, and encouraging environment. And when they feel like the company doesn’t understand them, they start looking for an organization that could cater to their desires better. 

The first one on one meeting with an employee is essential for setting the tone and the course for long-term performance, engagement, and employee retention. In addition, it’s the best way to make your employees feel welcome and create a sense of belonging in your organization.

Prepare Your One-On-One Meeting Structure

Regular one-on-one meetings are informal, but if you want to make the dedicated time productive and impactful, you should go into them with a plan. Here are a few pointers to consider when structuring your meetings:

Find the right location — For your one on ones, it’s crucial to pick a setting that feels secure and private. Don’t host them in the lobby or kitchen of the workplace. Reserve a meeting spot that will be a safe setting for delicate conversations. In your initial one on one meeting, you might not discuss anything delicate, but later on, you will. 

For remote one on one meetings, it is simpler because video chat immediately creates a more private environment for conversation. However, be careful to hold the video call in a private area. Also, inform your direct report if someone is nearby. You don’t want to have the employee confide in you and then be shocked to learn that somebody overheard and destroy the trust.

Let the employees know how the meeting will run — Send direct reports via email explaining the expectations and the goal of the meeting. Use a simple list of bullet points to let them know which topics will be discussed and what needs to be accomplished, so they can prepare for the one on one meeting and be more productive.

Start with a few get-to-know-you questions — Ask several warm-up questions that can help you get to know each other better. Ask them how they are feeling, how the onboarding process is going, and what they enjoy in their work role. It’s crucial to make them feel safe and be honest, so to build trust, share some things about yourself as well. 

Discuss challenges and work-related issues — If an employee expresses worry, find out why they are having trouble. Pay attention to their responses and use them as a learning opportunity. Rather than telling them what to do, make a commitment to working through the issue together.

Hold them accountable — Establish standards for what excellence looks like in your organization and inform them that you’ll maintain constant follow-up.  

Create action items — Your employees will be better able to stay focused on priorities and progress at a faster pace if you establish clear expectations and deadlines.

Set up a document — Using a simple Google Doc will help keep records of your conversation from the first day. You can use it to communicate agendas, take notes, record decisions, and keep track of feedback. Keeping all this data in one place will ensure you and the employee are aligned and working. It’s also an excellent method for avoiding miscommunication and ensuring accountability. Lastly, it will make your future meetings easier as you’ll have past discussions to reference and look into the most critical issues. 

One-On-One Meeting Template Examples

The first 1 on 1 meeting is about setting the tone for your relationship. Using one on one meeting agenda templates can help you structure and conduct a successful meeting. In addition, efficient, development-oriented one on one meetings can improve the team culture, boost employee engagement and performance, and build a constructive feedback culture. For your first one-to-one meetings, you can use the following template:

• 1 on 1 meeting with: [Name]
• Date and Time: [When will the meeting take place and the estimated start and end time]
• Location: [Where the meeting will be held] 
• Objective: [Establish a productive work relationship and ease the onboarding process] 
• Warm-up questions [Talking points and estimated duration] 
• Questions about the role  [Talking points and estimated duration] 
• Career development goals [Talking points and estimated duration]
• Action items [What are the next steps]
  

20 Questions for One on One Meetings

Even though the one on one meetings are driven by the employee’s specific needs, you should have a clear idea of what you’ll cover. Outlining a meeting agenda can help you guide your discussion and ensure you cover critical items. You’d want to cover some base points such as:

• Introduction and get-to-know-you questions
• Potential issues with onboarding
• Expectations
• Goals and career advancement

Here are 20 basic questions that can help you set the proper foundation: 

Warm-Up Questions

Considering that this is your first one on one meeting with an employee, you should invest some time in getting to know your team member on a personal level. Learning about your new employee’s hobbies and favorite things can give you a base for finding common ground and establishing trust. In addition, these meeting questions can also help you understand the employee’s greatest talents, personality, and interests. This data can also be beneficial for managing and engaging them more effectively in the future. Ask them:

• What are your interests and hobbies? 
• What’s your favorite thing to do in your free time? 
• What do you excel in?
• How would you describe your ideal work setting?
• Name the things that make you feel appreciated at work?
• What do you like about your role?
• What are the things you would like to learn about me?

Questions About the Role

During your first one on one meeting with an employee, learn about how the organizational socialization process is going. Getting them to share feedback can help you uncover their potential issues and areas that could be improved. Asking these questions can help you provide a smooth transition and a more positive experience:

• How was your experience at work this first week?
• Is there anything that has surprised you?
• How do you like the team dynamics?
• Which aspects of the job do you find challenging?
• Do you need additional information about something? 
• Do you need more resources so that you can do your job successfully?
• Do you feel a real connection with the team?
  

Career Conversation

The primary focus of a first in-person meeting is to lay the foundation for establishing a good relationship with the employee and give them a proper orientation. You shouldn’t focus too much on the performance review, status reports, and career path. However, understanding the employee’s career aspirations and long-term plans can give you valuable insights into how you can help their professional development and align their career goals with your organization’s strategy. Here’s a list of questions to ask them:

• What are the accomplishments of this quarter you’re most proud of?
• How are you measuring the progress of your goals? 
• What are your plans for the year to come?
• Where do you imagine yourself in five years? 
• Are there any obstacles standing in the way of your success?
• What can I do to help you accomplish your goals?

The Bottom Line

Now that you know how to plan the first one on one meeting with an employee, you can be confident you’ll make the time count and have a productive conversation that will set the tone for a successful collaboration. Remember to choose a meeting time, date, and location that work for both parties, create an agenda, and enter each meeting with a plan and prepared conversation points to make the most out of it.

The post How To Plan a Successful First One On One Interaction With Employees appeared first on Focus.

In today’s read, we’ll explain four tried-and-tested ways to use OKRs in product management, discuss their benefits, and provide examples of OKRs you may use as a starting point. 

Why Do You Need OKRs For Your Product Management

Product managers are responsible for identifying consumer needs and ensuring that the product is developed in a way that resonates with the target consumer while also meeting the company’s business goals. To succeed, product managers should go back and use an OKR product management framework as a collaborative goal-setting tool to define measurable goals and track their outcomes. Using OKRs can serve as a guideline while encouraging engagement among your team. In addition, you can use OKRs to create an environment where your product team will be able to work with a purpose. When used right, OKRs can help you create high output management, increase communication, and enhance team alignment.

OKR Product Management Examples

Objectives and key results will keep the product team focused on the right goals and encourage them to work diligently to achieve those goals. When setting up OKRs, it’s key that you have a plan on how you will accomplish them. Here are some OKR project management examples for setting better objectives and key results for their full effect.

Objective: Research customers’ demands and expectations to improve the product 

Key Results: 

• Watch 50 product usage records and compile learnings in the early stage
• Get 20 interviews from customers in the early stage
• Analyze all the information and find three key points to improve

Objective: Launch the new product successfully

Key Results:

• Complete 30 interviews for customer development by Q1
• Run two new product training sessions for the sales and marketing teams 
• Review 20 customer product marketing requirements
  

Objective: Create a product vision statement

Key Results:

• Interview 20 potential customers for feedback
• Point out three aspects in user experience mockups to enhance product usage engagement
• Reach usability score of at least 8 on user experience mockups from 30 potential customers

Objective: Boost the speed of delivery for the new product features

Key Results: 

• Boost the sprint team speed from 25 to 33 points
• Reduce the defects-per-feature rate from 2.3 to 1.5
• Lower the average lead time from through delivery of the product feature by five weeks

Objective: Boost onboarding of users 

Key Results:

• Decrease trial abandonment rate from 40% to 28%
• Increase the percentage of users with feature completion from 60% to 74%
• Enhance trial conversion rate from 37% to 45%

Objective: Launch the second version of the organization’s main product successfully

Key Results:

• Get over 5,000 signups 
• Get product reviews published in at least 10 publications
• Improve the OTD rate from 50% to 65%
  

Objective: Add more personalization features to the product  

Key Results:

• Boost the number of users who use the personalization features from 15% to 40%
• Allow the most frequently asked customization features and get more than 500 users
• Lower the drop-off after the first 30 days from 50% to 35% 
  

Objective: Test the new app’s MVP before it goes live

Key Results: 

• Complete the 10 core wireframes
• Conduct user flows test with at least 15 people 
• Finalize user tests with at least 10 strangers remotely

Objective: Build the best product team

Key Results: 

• Reach Internal Employee Satisfaction score of 9
• Roll out 5 blog articles about the organization’s product management process
• Carry out the new agile process for delivery and discovery for 3 teams

Objective: Improve the product management team

Key Results:

• Create team performance metrics  
• Boost unit test coverage percentage from 30% to 40%
• Use automated CI/CD to reduce the time for deployment from 15 to 5 minutes

OKR Product Management Best Practices

Objectives should be challenging, actionable, and time-bound, whereas key results should be clear and measurable. The best OKRs for product management should enhance the team’s creativity, focus, and productivity. Be careful not to take too many OKRs at once as too many challenges might spread your team’s focus thin. Instead, set up three objectives per quarter. For each objective, have three to five key results. 

Setting OKRs is more than a simple framework where you write down the objectives and key results. Instead, it’s a process that involves multiple stages:

Involve everyone — For a successful OKRs rollout, everyone from executives to junior employees should be involved. This approach improves productivity and team alignment. Coordinate your product management OKRs to your organizational goals, and then communicate which metrics you’ll use to measure the success.

Develop action plans — As soon as you set the OKRs, the teams should provide action plans for achieving the key results. The success of this step depends on collaboration. Once the action plans are complete, the teams can get to work. 

Consistent check-ins — It’s a common practice to set OKRs every quarter. You can choose another timeline that works for you, but it’s crucial to have regular check-ins to gain progress updates and ensure the OKRs are in motion. During these check-ins, you can identify and assess unexpected hurdles, come up with a creative solution, and review key results as needed.

OKRs review — Analysis is crucial at the end of each OKRs period. This is an excellent opportunity to track the OKRs performance and how it might reflect the need for changes in your organization. 

Support collaboration — Ensure that individuals are free to communicate, engage, and debate the list of objectives with one another. Create an online community or area where the entire team can post updates, discuss problems, and generate ideas for solutions.

Benefits of OKR Product Management 

As we said, OKRs for product managers help them choose the right priorities, measure progress, and align efforts with the organization’s goals. Here are some of the main benefits of product management OKRs:

Prioritization

Setting up multiple goals is often tempting for product managers. However, it’s usually better to focus on just a few initiatives; OKRs can provide a consistent path that product managers can follow, prioritize the most important goals, and stay focused. 

Enhances Operational Agility

Many businesses prefer agile product management because it enables them to operate in the present. When setting OKRs, you don’t need to rewrite the entire approach. Furthermore, the framework allows for setting flexible key results that can be changed at any point.

More Vertical and Horizontal Alignment 

All organizational levels ought to participate in the process of defining OKRs. Successfully implemented OKRs strengthen internal cohesion and improve the alignment of corporate objectives.

Better Project Progress Tracking

Since product managers are in charge of developing and maintaining the product roadmap, keeping track of progress is crucial. By accurately documenting, defining, and monitoring the advancement of your projects, OKRs can help you keep track of your team’s goals.

OKR Product Management: The Bottom Line

Setting good OKRs helps you establish attainable goals, monitor progress, and foster team engagement and cooperation that empowers your team to produce measurable results. To ensure a cohesive implementation, use OKRs across all areas of product management, from product strategy and delivery through product vision, roadmaps, and discovery.

Creating good OKRs requires frequent iterations but with a well-defined strategy and strong teamwork, you can easily streamline the process.

The post 4 Effective Ways To Use OKRs in Product Management appeared first on Focus.

So you’re managing a team and you need some help with synchronicity. Need to know what’s going on with everyone in your team? Daily Stand-ups sound like just the thing you need! Learn about daily stand-ups or daily scrum. These meetings are not just a status update, it’s an essential tool.

Read for our tips and suggestions with team development.

There are three main parts that we will cover:

1. Defining Daily Stand-up
2. Why you need it as a leader
3. Implementation
4. Why you need Focus

Defining the Daily Stand-up

Daily stand-ups, daily scrum, daily meetings or whatever name you know them as are all the same thing. They are daily check-in meetings you have with your team.

Daily Stand-ups are timely, informal, and get to the point. No need to prepare presentations or rehearse, just go down a list of critical information you need to share. Your team should provide information on their obstacles and possibly what they’re doing to mitigate these problems.

The advantage to daily scrum is that you can give your input right away. Give some criticism or share some helpful tips.

You can even shut down ideas and help narrow down what your team should be doing.

These meetings originated as a tool for development teams-Agile development teams that it. Agile teams are defined by the Harvard Business Review here: Agile at Scale. They’ve grown since then and should be utilized by all teams, non-technical or otherwise.

Why you need it (as a leader)

These daily scrum are vital for team coordination. They are an effective form of communication that help you stay on task.

When your team is in sync, you can achieve more. Get better results, faster results more efficiently.

For example, you want to have your team post on the company’s social media everyday. Creating a calendar and delegating the tasks is the first step. If someone misses a post or creates something not to your liking, a face to face meeting, even over video call is the best way to communicate your message. A quick call can aid in overcoming misunderstandings.

Daily stand-ups prevent critical issues from growing.

These frequent stand-ups don’t allow for issues to fall through the crack. Because problems can be address easily as they appear or even before they’re noticeable, they can be tackled on the spot.

Daily Stand-ups are not just individual reports.

The benefit of doing daily stand-ups is its notable difference from a normal meeting or report. If you treat these daily stand-ups like a a report meeting then you lose it’s value.

Here are some examples of how you can stay in sync:

1. Write a mini agenda/list so that the team can view
2. Don’t go off topic in daily stand-ups
3. Stay active in group chats
4. Use Focus (more details below)

At Focus, our main goal is to help teams achieve the most! We want to share our technology and OKR guides so that no matter how big or small your organization is, it can reach it’s full potential. We believe in daily stand-ups and that every leader should give it a try!

Implementation

So now that you’re ready to start having these daily scrum with your team, here’s what you need to know.

Rule #1 is to know your team’s schedule. Find a time that works for everyone and that means everyone. Having expected attendance and participation gathers respect. You show respect for your team and take time to check up on them, so they should share their honest thoughts and comments in return.

Rule #2 is to keep it short. This is not the time to have long, deep in-depth conversations. These daily stand-ups can delve into personal topics, but should ultimately stay light and focused. You want to understand what’s going on and any obstacles. Any “blockers” that need more than 15 minutes to explain should be saved for a later meeting, which you can plan during this daily check-in.

The length of daily stand-ups are a great advantage. Each party has to equally participate and the limited time helps everyone stay focused to not only talk about their plans but also actively listen.

On a side note, these meetings are short, so remember to be on time!

There’s no space for uncomfortably in daily stand-ups.

Rule #3 is to always address impediments. If your team never has any issues then it’s because they don’t feel comfortable diverging information. As there are always ways to improve, there will always be obstacles to your goal. Leaders should aid in teamwork, meaning your team should not be too intimidated to let you know what issues they face. Be wary of this secrecy. Even if your team is at their peak performance, have them share their impediments and how they can address them.

There’s no time for passivity.

The last major rule is to stay committed! Don’t give up on these meetings. Daily means daily. As casual as they may be, your team should treat is an a important part of their day. The more you value these stand-ups the more your team will as well. Lead by example and you’ll soon enjoy the benefits of daily stand-ups!

My personal tip is to thank people for their time! As quick as these meetings are, it’s always polite to give a “thank you” to the person for their time. It’s better not to assume what your team’s schedule might be. Last minute changes can happen to these meetings, and you might not know what plans they had to move to make it on time. Take advantage of this time to recognize your employee’s hard work and build your professional relationship! It never hurts to be polite and friendly. This relationship can translate into work and in turn improve your team’s commitment.

Daily Stand-ups go a long way.

Read our tips on one on one meetings:

9 One on One Meeting Tips

What are One on One Meetings

Why you need Focus

At Focus, we pride ourselves on being communication-oriented and solution driven. Our use of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) helps our team to stay on task and figure out creative solutions.

Read more about these OKRs on our blog:

What are OKRs

We use many forms of communication to let our team know our status. Focus had daily check ins where you share your actions and tasks as well as meaningful insight. Every member of the team can see what everyone else is doing. To make this process even more convenient, we have a Slackbot for these daily check ins as well. Weekly team meetings and one on one meetings are a must for our team. Our blog serves as evidence of this synchronicity!

We post about the changes Focus has gone through on our blog:

Focus Update

Daily stand-ups, check-ins, and OKR are growing in popularity so you and your team should give us a try! Don’t lag behind all the teams and start-ups. With Focus, you’ll find ease in fostering clarity and teamwork across all types of departments and projects!

Schedule a meeting with our CEO and team at Focus.

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The post Daily Stand-ups are a Must! Here’s Why. appeared first on Focus.