When it comes to looking from the bottom up, focusing on the OKR can help streamline and improve the process. By OKR, we mean Objectives and Key Results. In theory, the objectives can be suggested at every level, which can be beneficial, but the important thing with a bottom-up approach is that there has been consultation between the lower levels and those at the higher level in the making of the decision. This is what a Bottoms-Up approach means. We are asking those at the very bottom or mid-level of a company, usually at the operational level, to provide us with the information and suggestions that are used to make the higher-level decisions. So, let us consider just why we may do that to achieve our OKR Goals.

Staff Engagement

Greater engagement and motivation will likely be achieved from staff who have been involved in decision-making. This is partly because it makes them feel a greater part of a company and also because the suggestions offered will be based on a ground-level understanding of a company. To achieve this kind of information is invaluable for a manager or supervisor who will not see everything that goes on within a company, and in any case, cannot often understand it as well as the person doing the job. We can get away with it if a manager has worked their way up from the bottom level to the top rung but invariably these days this just does not happen. In many cases, managers will be trained as managers and then it is their communication skills that will generally save them when it comes to finding out what they need to know to manage.

Better Flow of Information

It is an effective approach to have information filter upwards through a company’s hierarchy, and then instructions filter downwards. There is no reason why those not in management cannot help with the decision-making process. The manager, after all, is paid a higher salary for the responsibility and management experience rather than their practical knowledge of an operational process necessarily. Of course, ideally, we would want this too but we would rather a manager be a strategist. Although, having said that, outside agencies can take care of strategies. We do, however, and without exception, need effective communication at all times so that everyone knows what their role is in achieving the strategy that has been ultimately worked out.

Benefits of Using OKRs

So, we should consider how OKRs benefit companies to understand how bottom-up approaches make a difference. The main thing is that OKR aligns employees with corporate goals. They will then have a clear direction to follow that is understandable to them. This will in turn increase productivity. With OKR, goals can be tracked too. It is about company employees at all levels making informed decisions that become effective, and they see become effective. There is that possibility of being able to measure progress and to have accountability for it with greater transparency. For instance, if those at ground level have been a part of the decisions, they are more accountable for anything suggested that later needs revision. There will be fewer complaints that way when another change needs to be made. Everyone will agree that the best possible strategy at the time was come up with. Things change and so strategies will invariably have to as well, no matter how good the strategy may have seemed in the first place.

To summarise, it has been witnessed by companies that they have achieved better staff engagement for a strategy when it has been formulated using a bottom-up approach in respect of objectives and key results (OKR). The budding entrepreneurs who are not sure how to use it, can enlist the help of the UK leaders for OKRs training to understand it better.

Apparently, the whole flow of information within a company can be improved, encouraging an approach where information of all sorts can be discussed between lower and higher levels with freedom and less intimidation. The bottom-up approach to information assimilation sits perfectly alongside an OKR approach and can only benefit a company in the longer term.