What are Key Result Areas? | Meaning & Definition | Akrivia HCM

What is KRA?

KRA, an abbreviation for key result areas, stands for the general measurements or parameters that a company has set for a particular position. The word describes the span of a job profile and encompasses around 80% to 8% of a job’s responsibilities. The term is often used in business settings and refers to the general measurements or parameters that the organization has set for a particular position.

The company’s employee performance is evaluated through key result areas, which help employees have a clearer understanding of their function. This should be well-defined, quantitative, and straightforward to track. This also helps employees align their roles in the company.

In a manner that resembles organized chaos, these are produced by corporations and organizations to evaluate the performance of their employees. Employers also use KRAs as an evaluation tool since they focus on all aspects of an employee’s work life, not just one job duty.

Importance of KRA

It can serve many functions. They can summarize an employee’s role in an organization, and they can motivate employees and increase their engagement.

1. When it matches the tasks that have been accomplished, it becomes indisputably fair and unbiased to appraise, reward, and recognize employees.
2. Deadlines and timelines are like the backbone of a project plan; they keep tasks organized, allow you to prioritize, and help you meet all due dates.
3. When an organization clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of each department and employee, time, budget, and assets are much easier to allocate.
4. A supervisor’s job is not just to assign tasks and check in on results; it’s also to help employees understand how their role fits into the big picture.
5. When employees know what they are supposed to do and accomplish, they are likelier to produce better results with increased productivity.

Benefits of KRA

Knowing what you are responsible for is essential to your job satisfaction, productivity, and professional growth:

1. Links each job role to the overall business strategy.
2. To achieve organizational alignment, top-down communication must be balanced with bottom-up participation.
3. For employees to be effective, set clear goals for them.
4. Coaching and counselling tailored to your needs.
5. It helps in fair performance evaluation.

Tips for setting KRA

If you want to assign key result areas and make sure employees can maximize the efficiency of your organization, here are five simple tips:

1. For it is to be effective, it has to be tailored to each employee’s particular strengths and expertise. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to setting it. Remember that feedback from colleagues, managers, and most importantly, the employees themselves should be taken into account while setting up their KRAs.
2. Measuring how organized an organization is and how much it grows its employees is essential. Having a healthy balance between short-term and long-term goals as well as between personnel’s career objectives and an organization’s mission will help you define KRAs.
3. Evaluate employees regularly and give them plenty of notice when it’s coming up. Measure their performance against the criteria you set (both qualitative and quantitative). Try setting goals and evaluating overall performance.
4. The best way to assign responsibilities is to give multiple goals to employees. Multiple priorities for KRAs, on the other hand, will help employees accomplish tasks faster, leading to better performance reviews and timely completion of tasks.
5. Flexible, realistic Key Results Areas are needed to make a business thrive. Unyielding and inflexible Key Results Areas won’t take enterprises anywhere, so keeping them up with changing times is important.

How to calculate KRA?

It stands for Key Result Area, a system many businesses use to measure and account for how well their employees are doing. While it is weighted according to their importance, all weights added together must equal 100%. Each KRA has quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs) that track how well your organization is doing.

Methods to write smart KRAs

1. It is essential to check an employee’s job description before you speak with them. Meet with both the manager and employee, if necessary.
2. Figure out what a person can do for you and how they would make you look like a genius.
3. Remember to complete all tasks stated in percentages, figures, or another non-human language to do well in your job.
4. Instead of creating your targets and explanations in a vacuum, imagine a complete newbie stumbling into your task and trying to figure it out.
5. When setting goals, include concrete, reachable targets, and reasonable deadlines.

Things to remember before assigning KRA

To achieve goals smoothly and channelized manner, it is necessary to assign Key Results area (KRAs) to employees according to their positions in an organization. However, while assigning the KRAs, it is advisable to follow three steps:

1. Organizations are like ships, and their missions are their courses. Defining a successful practice requires knowing where the boat is going, where it has been, where it is now, and who’s on board. Get your employees on the same page by aligning goals with your organization’s mission.
2. To ensure the success of Key Result Areas efforts, managers should talk to those involved and ask for their input. The only way to learn about employees’ strengths and weaknesses is to communicate with them. This way, managers will be able to delegate responsibilities effectively.
3. When establishing Key Results Areas, supervisors need to clearly grasp what they expect from each employee and how each of it aligns with the organization’s goals. Once you create a step-by-step method for completing goals, employees can easily accomplish their objectives without confusion.

Conclusion

When you link SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) to job descriptions and the organization’s Key Results Areas, you help employees align their work to organizational needs. Defining a job’s duties as precisely as possible helps managers set goals that match employees’ skills and the company’s needs.