Profit.co is an iterative business execution platform. Profit Apps Inc, the company behind Profit.co is a Delaware Corporation incorporated in the USA and now its office has reached India as well. The company is all about Metrics that indicate the health of a business. Profit.co is the best Objectives and Key Results (OKR) software for your entire organization. It is extremely simple to onboard, use and it features over 300 metrics. Mr. Senthil Rajagopalan is the President & COO of Profit.co. Recently Team IT-Voice had an opportunity to interact with him. Senthil answered the questions related to the organization and the subject domain. Here is an excerpt from the interaction:
Prateek: Tell us about the vision behind Profit.co.
Senthil Rajagopalan: Profit.co aims to help users focus on their priorities, measure their progress, and achieve their ambitious goals. Our company uses the OKR framework in order to get the best out of our leaders and employees, and we believe that it can bring the best results for our customers as well. Our OKR management software was developed with the user in mind so that it’s more intuitive than our competitors and more useful for every user– from the CEO to the newest hire. Our vision is to help our users achieve more, more efficiently, and the way we do that is through intuitive software and the constant drive to iterate and improve our service.
Prateek: With the new culture due to the pandemic what are some of the challenges in Performance Reviews?
Senthil Rajagopalan: Performance reviews in any environment can spark a great deal of anxiety and stress for both managers and employees. Evaluating performance takes up a lot of time and resources, and if companies only have the bandwidth to conduct evaluations once per year, there’s a lot of pressure on that one review. Performance reviews during the pandemic can be even more difficult, because teams are no longer in the same office together, or they are only in the office for a limited time. This cuts down the opportunities for conversation, collaboration, as well as casual check-ins.
Challenges that are coming up more in performance reviews include having to adapt to the changing modes of communication and offering flexibility where it’s needed. It’s up to managers to redefine what success looks like for their employees, and clearly communicate what the expectations are for performance reviews and for job roles. Having virtual performance discussions may seem informal, so it’s up to managers to give a clear agenda for the meeting and ensure that employees know what they should be prepared with during the review. Ensure that you address what the employee thinks of their performance, what your evaluation of them is, as well as the future plans for performance you have.
Profit.co’s software can help make remote performance reviews just as useful and effective as in-person reviews. With customizable reviews, managers can tailor questions, competencies, and performance gradings according to the data provided by the employee and the culture of your organization.
Prateek: Please throw some light on OKR Management and its utilization during the era highlighted by the work from home culture.
Senthil Rajagopalan: The OKR framework might seem like a daunting strategy execution framework to people who don’t have familiarity with it. In reality, objectives and key results are very straightforward. At the most basic level, higher-level leaders set qualitative goals for the company, a department, or a team. Then, they set the key outcomes that they need to see in the organization to know that the objective has been fulfilled, and assign these to individuals to fulfill.
OKRs throughout the organization are aligned to one another. This ensures that employees not only know precisely what their priorities are but also that the entire company is working towards the same goals. This eliminates the noise of day-to-day work and enables employees to focus on what matters most for their organization.
OKRs, when managed on a transparent software like Profit.co, has the capacity to align the full power of your team behind a goal that you want to achieve. Users can access the product from anywhere in the world. So, if your team is fully remote, or even working in multiple different time zones, everyone is able to log into the software and view team progress without having to use email or chat. This cuts down unnecessary or cumbersome communication and helps employees stay focused on their priorities, even if they don’t have the benefit of daily check-ins with their manager or team.
Prateek: How can OKR Management help in recognizing and rewarding the employees?
Senthil Rajagopalan: One of the key components of a successful OKR program is transparency throughout the entire organization. OKR software like Profit.co enables all users within an organization to see how other teams’ goals are progressing and even track the progress of an individual employee on their key results.
When all progress is visible throughout the organization, there is more opportunity for employees to reach out to one another with congratulations or encouragement. Additionally, managers can see their employees’ up-to-date progress and can leave comments in the chat, highlight their efforts during team meetings, or even use our employee engagement module to offer an award for outstanding work.
Prateek: How to create a high-performance team using OKRs?
Senthil Rajagopalan: All organizations strive to grow high-performance teams. This high-performance mindset must be cultivated by a strong performance culture. One of the key components of the OKR framework is the requirement to “stretch”. This means setting ambitious goals that are beyond your comfort zone. Instituting an OKR culture in your organization necessarily means asking employees to stretch and push themselves further when it comes to setting and achieving goals.
When organizations set ambitious goals, employees, teams, and departments align to them, dedicating focus, time, and resources to the achievement of these important goals. OKRs help employees block out the noise or urgent day-to-day tasks and instead get a clear picture of what their top priorities are. OKRs can boost employee focus on goals and results, as well as their motivation to do well on a transparent goal that everyone in the company can view. Employees become more engaged with their work when they know how they affect top company objectives. With OKRs, employees develop a sense of ownership and accountability around the outcomes they are personally responsible for.
The Profit.co software helps companies manage their OKRs with transparency and alignment so they can get the most out of the OKR framework and cultivate a culture of ambition and high performance.
For any such interaction opportunities, you may write to us at [email protected].
