BetterWorks

BetterWorks

Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is a performance management framework that has existed for some time but has now become easier to operationalize and integrate into day-to-day employee activities through BetterWorks. The core pillars of the OKR framework focus on helping employees deliver meaningful work rather than focusing on relaying activities and results to management. The methodology's themes are goal alignment, transparent communication of objectives and key results (OKR) and, collaboration in setting quarterly or annual OKRs. Half of OKRs are to be cascaded bottom up (employees to managers), rather than top down (managers to employees). This is believed to improve engagement and accountability within teams. In addition, purpose, in this method, is defined as completing work; achieving results that impact the business. Purpose is not attending countless alignment meetings with management and reporting out on activities and results. Having a transparent system can allow teams to reduce meetings addressing objective alignment or progress on objectives and instead focus on opportunities in the business and in the marketplace. 

 BetterWorks allows businesses to apply the OKR methodology and seamlessly integrate it's processes throughout the organization. OKR is a lifecycle process, with various steps to be completed in a monthly and quarterly basis. BetterWorks is customizable for fully transparent views for the entire business or more customized visibility. The platform offers easy 'Check-Ins', peer feedback, 360 evaluations, and customizable templates to set a cadence for conversations between employees and managers.  

RATINGS: 4.5 OUT OF 5 STARS.

Strength: BetterWorks has set itself apart from other performance management and feedback platforms through it's heightened integration capabilities. In addition to being able to integrate with Outlook, Slack etc, it can integrate with powerful tools such as Salesforce and JIRA. These systems are used daily by employees to record and complete their day-to-day activities. This level of integration allows users to reduce the amount of manual data entry and reporting. The data can flow daily from Salesforce, for example, into BetterWorks allowing for employees and managers to focus more on the quality of feedback and deep conversations rather than data validation and debate. In addition, using Salesforce again as an example, cross-functional teams often times have objectives that are directly linked to Sales objectives and results, this level of integration and transparency allows those teams to access the results and ensure there is goal alignment in teams that are responsible for execution of goals. For example, Marketing employees will often have one or two objectives that are heavily influenced by Sales execution. The ability to have results flow from Salesforce into a Marketing employees OKRs is hugely rewarding not only for Marketing but also for Sales because each team can now see the end-to-end OKRs and accountabilities throughout the org. 

Weakness: BetterWorks has limitations in terms of using it as a daily task or project manager. It's a better tool for larger, broader quarterly or annual goals. Employees can't actually use the system to manage day-to-day activities and completion rates. In addition, users give critical feedback on the mobile app. The mobile app isn't a powerful tool yet where a user can add, remove, update OKRs. At this point, it's a visual tool useful for notifications and to access information. 

Best Use: BetterWorks receives high ratings from mid-sized companies. It's an performance management platform for businesses established with company-wide applications such as CRMs, Project Managers, Enterprise Systems, HRIS etc. It's integration capabilities are it's greatest competitive advantage and are a huge improvement to traditional performance management systems. In addition, it's adoption of OKR methodology is well suited for a mid-sized company that is looking to improve and innovate how teams perform and how leaders lead teams. Businesses focused on growth, fluidity,  adaptability, will find this platform to be a good  partner on that journey. Finally, BetterWorks provides a good customer experience through it's integration and support teams.