Key result areas or KRAs are a very useful tool to increase employee understanding and accountability for the results they are being asked to deliver. KRAs help better align employees work to wider goals and make better use of resources. At an employee level KRAs focus individuals on delivering results rather than undertaking activity. 

 Learn what are key result areas and 5 great ways to use key result areas to improve team performance. 
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Key result areas for team direction should align to company strategy and the function or business unit KRAs. Alignment is really important to maximise everyone efforts in the business to hitting targets and goals. I have provided some key result areas examples at company and team levels.

For performance management, less KRAs in number increases the focus – which is good for results. When setting goals for individuals, align these directly to the team KRAs. 

Next think about the time periods over which you need the results. Set team KRAs that create the most valuable results to enable the wider function or business goals to be achieved. 

Then set individual KRAs which relate directly to their roles and aligned into the team goals. This creates good performance management tools both at a team and individual level. Results are usually easier to track than activity. The KRA in performance management terms should has specific and clear measurable output.

Finally, always spend as much time planning the activities, initiatives and projects that will enable the individual to deliver the results set out in their KRAs. The employee is much more likely to deliver results when they have a clear plan or set of plans to enable them to deliver. 

I view this final planning step as super important for success in improving team performance. 

Creating good key result areas is a very useful tool to focus time and effort into the right areas. As a manager, you then need to work at keeping the KRAs front of mind and influencing what the team focuses their time and effort on. In the modern workplace, there are so many distractions, new initiatives and shiny projects that forgetting about the KRAs is easy to do unless the manager is constantly reminding the team. 

Use KRAs to move employee thinking from activity to delivering results which are more aligned to the wider business. 

If you have any questions on “5 Great Ways to Use Key Result Areas or KRAs to Improve Team Performance and Ownership”, please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. 

 Jess Coles

Enhance.training