17 Human Resources (HR) OKR Examples

Having examples for OKRs can help any department create better objectives and key results. OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) help HR teams set and achieve goals in collaborative ways. Creating OKRs for HR teams can foster cohesion, increase employee engagement, align people with purpose, and create a culture of transparency.

Learn more about what OKRs are and how to use them

Regardless of how your organization labels it — human resources, people & talent, people operations — HR OKRs elevate the impact of your teams. 

As the organization’s source for managing and nourishing people and talent, success in the HR profession means improvements in employee satisfaction, performance, and engagement. The HR team has three main challenges:

1. Demonstrating the impact of its efforts  
2. Building a culture that scales
3. Boosting productivity by upleveling team members and managers

It’s the HR professional’s job to ensure consistent improvements in the employee experience, as well as recruit talent that contributes and fits in with that experience. Measuring something subjective like satisfaction is possible with OKRs for HR, going further to show progress on the impact of your overall HR efforts.

While HR can be seen as an “overhead” business expense rather than a catalyst for driving initiatives, HR professionals can use data from OKRs to better inform decision-making. 

Creating OKRs for HR gives leadership a clear look into how specific KPIs contribute to company human resources objectives, helping HR teams get buy-in from those who contribute resources. In addition, HR OKRs can help quantify soft skill measurements like:

• Engagement
• Wellness
• Collaboration
• Teamwork
• Feedback

Using OKRs for HR brings quantitative metrics into your initiatives — you can measure the work and base decision-making on data versus intuition. HR OKRs are a time-bound framework for your teams to consistently test, improve, and transform your organization. 

Creating OKRs for human resources departments requires knowledge about what your organization needs most. This can include:

• Bringing up lagging areas inhibiting growth
• Maintaining momentum and ensuring balance
• Going above and beyond in an area for a competitive advantage

The needs of your organization are rarely one-dimensional, but HR OKRs can help HR teams uncover growth opportunities through data collection.

For example, employee experience surveys generate a baseline for understanding which vulnerabilities or opportunities exist.

If employees are happy with compensation and benefits but feel your workplace doesn’t empower their development, your HR OKR focus is clear — creating key results targeting satisfaction metrics (outcome), or the initiatives to improve satisfaction (output) are the next logical step.  

Tracking changes from quarter to quarter will help your teams see which initiatives are working, where improvement is needed, and how the HR OKRs may need to adapt. 

OKRs for HR teams have several areas of focus:

• Compensation
• Performance
• Education and training
• Company culture
• Employee retention
• Hiring/recruiting
• Performance management

Check out all our HR OKR examples below. 

HR OKR examples could include simple objectives such as:

• Reviewing benefits and compensation 
• Conducting monthly team events 
• Increasing employee satisfaction rates to an average of at least 80%
• Creating flexible working options if desired by employees
• Implementing personal development programs for all team members
• Recruiting 5 new team members

Let's take a deeper dive into OKRs for HR by looking at examples of HR OKRs for compensation, performance, training & development, culture, retention, recruiting, and performance management. 

OKRs for HR: compensation

HR OKR Example 1

• Objective: Significantly improve our benefit program while staying within budget
• Key result 1: Evaluate benefit programs of 5 similar local companies, select and finalize contract with new vendor with best fit
• Key result 2: Ensure >85% participation in benefit program
• Key result 3: Maintain benefits budget below $500 per team member per year

HR OKR Example 2

• Objective: Invest in our employees
• Key result 1: Decrease top performer attrition from 18% to 10%
• Key result 2: Increase salary competitiveness ratio from 1.1 to 1.5
• Key result 3: Improve employee satisfaction score for compensation from 60 to 75% 

OKRs for HR: performance 

HR OKR Example 1

• Objective: Drastically increase team performance
• Key result 1: Increase the OKR completion rate for team members from 60% to 70%
• Key result 2: Increase the participation on the weekly check-ins from 75% to 90%
• Key result 3: Increase the product teams velocity from 112 to 150

HR OKR Example 2

• Objective: Deliver a revised and improved PTO Policy
• Key result 1: Hire an assistant to service employee administrative needs
• Key result 2: Evaluate 3 solutions for leave tracking and select the best one for the team
• Key result 3: Achieve 90% satisfaction rate of the new system

OKRs for HR: education, training and development 

HR OKR Example 1

• Objective: Implement personal development program for all team members
• Key result 1: Create the career roadmap for all 65 current positions and get approval from team leads
• Key result 2: Create a program for 100% of team members of the PDP
• Key result 3: Achieve 80% completion rate for the PDPs
• Key result 4: Select the tool/system for tracking PDPs and achieve 80% satisfaction rate

HR OKR Example 2

• Objective: Achieve OKR adoption in all teams
• Key result 1: 100% of employees scheduled for OKRs training workshops.
• Key result 2: Achieve an 80% approval rating on employee survey on OKR effectiveness
• Key result 3: Achieve at least 60% completion rate for the first OKRs cycle

HR OKR Example 3

• Objective: Create a training program for each department
• Key result 1: Create and get approval from team leads for the training program for 7 departments
• Key result 2: Achieve 80% attendance for the training programs
• Key result 3: Achieve 9.0 eNPS score for the training events

OKRs for HR: culture 

HR OKR Example 1

• Objective: Increase team engagement and motivation
• Key result 1: Increase the team member engagement score from 75% to 90%
• Key result 2: Reduce the number of complaints per month from 4 to 1
• Key result 3: 100% of team members receive feedback this quarter

HR OKR Example 2

• Objective: Improve employee wellness
• Key result 1: Interview 15 team members on how to improve work-life balance in the team
• Key result 2: Review food offerings with a professional, roll out 100% health snacks
• Key result 3: Decrease the sick day leaves per month per employee from 2 to 1
• Key result 4: Ensure that a minimum 70% of employees get annual flu vaccine through on-site facilitation

HR OKR Example 3

• Objective: Hold an amazing 10th anniversary event
• Key result 1: Achieve >85% attendance of the event
• Key result 2: Achieve >8.5 NPS of the event
• Key result 3: Involve at least 1 representative of each department for team building & organizational preparation activities for the event

OKRs for HR: retention

HR OKR Example 1

• Objective: Significantly improve employee retention
• Key result 1: Reduce attrition rate to <3%
• Key result 2: Improve employee employee satisfaction score to 9 or above
• Key result 3: 99% of employees complete an Engagement survey to determine methods to improve transparency and alignment
• Key result 4: Complete report comparing current compensation & benefits to market rates

HR OKR Example 2

• Objective: Refine and promote company values
• Key result 1: Interview 25 members of the team (15% of total) on our culture and values
• Key result 2: Update values, description, and examples based on the interview
• Key result 3: Conduct 5 talks during the weekly team meetings on the examples of how we use our values

OKRs for HR: hiring/recruiting

HR OKR Example 1

• Objective: Create an effective recruiting machine
• Key result 1: Reduce the average lead time for the vacancy from 45 to 30 days
• Key result 2: Increase the % off offers accepted from 80% to 90%
• Key result 3: Reduce the cost of hire from $1,250 to <$1,000
• Key result 4: Increase the % of closed positions from internal recommendations from 10% to 25%
• Key result 5: 15 new hires attributed to current employee referrals

HR OKR Example 2

• Objective: Improve the onboarding process
• Key result 1: Conduct 10 interviews to identify issues with the onboarding process
• Key result 2: Increase pass rate for new employees from 85% to 95%
• Key result 3: Achieve 90% satisfaction rate of the onboarding process

HR OKR Example 3

• Objective: Hire and onboard amazing new team members
• Key result 1: Hire 3 new team members (2 devs, 1 marketer)
• Key result 2: Interview 10 team members about their hiring and onboarding experience and create an improvement plan
• Key result 3: Create an onboarding program & presentation for each of the 5 new positions

OKRs for HR: performance management

HR OKR Example 1

• Objective: Transition to ongoing performance management
• Key result 1: Implement a new 2-way closed-loop feedback process for 100% of employees
• Key result 2: 100% of current employees migrated to quarterly performance reviews
• Key result 3: Receive 90% positive employee engagement score for new process
• Key result 4: Ensure that >80% of managers implement a weekly check in process utilizing Quantive

HR OKR Example 2

• Objective: Make all of our managers more effective and successful
• Key result 1: Implement management training with >80% participation
• Key result 2: Ensure every manager is doing regular 1-on-1 meetings with 2-way feedback
• Key result 3: Do monthly anonymous employee surveys to get feedback on managerial effectiveness
• Key result 4: Implement 360 review process for all managers, delivering report to Executive team

Take your HR OKRs to the next level using OKR software, facilitating collaborative goal-setting and dynamic monitoring. 

OKR software enables you to define and communicate HR objectives transparently, track progress in real-time, and align these goals with evolving HR strategies effortlessly. This empowers your team to set ambitious yet realistic targets, cultivating accountability and continuous improvement within your workforce.

Get a sneak peek into what HR OKRs would look like within an OKR software like Quantive Results:

Quantive empowers modern organizations to turn their ambitions into reality through strategic agility. It's where strategy, teams, and data come together to drive effective decision-making, streamline execution, and maximize performance.  

As your company navigates today’s competitive landscape, you need an Always-On Strategy to continuously bridge the gap between current and desired business outcomes. Quantive brings together the technology, expertise, and passion to transform your strategy from a static plan to a feedback-driven engine for growth.  

Whether you’re a visionary start-up, a mid-market business looking to conquer, or a large enterprise facing disruption, Quantive keeps you ahead — every step of the way. For more information, visit www.quantive.com.