How do you measure success among your team? Are these expectations clearly communicated to them? Can you define what success looks like in each position in your organization? Without KRA’s we are setting up our team members for failure!
CJ Fritsch has written about the necessity of implementing KRA’s in his article, “7 Reasons Why You Need Key Results Areas”. Here are 5 noteworthy reasons why you should introduce KRA’s to your organization:
1. Clarify Roles. This is perhaps the most important aspect of KRAs. They provide clearly defined boundaries and clearly states what winning at their job looks like. In other words, if they can meet the objectives listed in their KRA, they will be rock stars within your organization
2. Align Their Roles. Everyone on the team must be marching to the same drum beat. This means that everyone should have objectives that align with the overall vision of the organization. Nothing creates more chaos than having several different teams operating within their own silos. Having KRAs is paramount in creating alignment in every job function.
3. Focus On Results, Not Activities. KRAs help us focus on the result of the activity, not the activity itself. We want our team to be doing the activity, but we want them achieving at a certain level. Anyone can answer the phone, but we want to make sure it is answered in two rings, not three.
4. Prioritizes Work. KRAs help to prioritize your team member’s work loads. Since they know what winning out their job looks like because of KRAs, they know what objective is most important. They also know what is second, third, and fourth most important.
5. Improve Hiring Process. This is an equally important reason for KRAs. Complete a KRA before you do the hiring process, especially if the hire is for a brand new position. Even if the hire is just to fill an old position, go through the exercise. Maybe something changed, or the job needs to be adjusted.By having a completed KRA before you head into the hiring process, you know exactly what you are looking for. We have seen too many times, where someone was hired for a position, and then quit because the actual job was nothing like what was described in the hiring process. We have also seen where the wrong person was hired and was not capable of doing the job. Save yourself the headache and cost of a bad hire…do a KRA beforehand!