A growing number of businesses that have traditionally tracked time, such as accounting firms, have decided to do away with this practice for good.

Value-pricing is gaining traction, technology advancements are constantly improving efficiencies, and more and more workers are moving outside traditional 9-5 hours or do not work in an office at all. These are just some of the factors that mean time-tracking is no longer the only way to track the performance of employees and keep tabs on efficiencies.

To determine how well staff meet expectations, you need to turn your attention away from the input, and assess output.

Tracking team performance with OKRs

An effective way of focusing and monitoring team performance is the OKR (Objectives & Key Results) method. This involves breaking yearly goals down into shorter-term objectives and key results, and setting individual goals for every team member that relate to these.

One of the major advantages of using OKRs is that they demonstrate how everything one team member does connects to the work of other employees, teams, and the overall goals of the practice. When everyone knows how their work is contributing to the bigger picture, it increases engagement, motivation, and determination.

OKRs begin with the business goals that cover multiple aspects of your business—revenue, staff retention, number of clients and their satisfaction, and whatever else you need to achieve to reach your ultimate goals. It will help to think about each aim using the S.M.A.R.T. method—make them specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-specific.

When you look at quarterly objectives for your practice, you can then start to think about key results you will need to attain in order to hit each one of them.

OKR stands for Objectives & Key Results. Your objectives are goals, which tell you where to go. And each objective has a few key results, which indicate how you’ll get there.

Rules for your OKRs

• You must set them annually and quarterly.

• Don’t have too many: Five objectives and four key results for each is your maximum per quarter (though we recommend three objectives)

• Make them challenging: you should expect to finish hitting 80% of your targets.

• A key result must have a number. This way you can objectively say whether you’ve achieved it or not (scoring at the end of the quarter, using a scale of 0-1)