Progress reporting: the necessary evil for accomplishing goals

Key takeaway: It’s commonly known that the number one reason why organizations fail to achieve their goals is setting them at the beginning of a quarter and then forgetting about them. Our data analysis clearly shows that more frequent goal progress updates help organizations to achieve up to twice as many goals. Reporting doesn’t have to take up a lot of time: A good OKR or goal management software can turn reporting into a simple habit that takes employees 5 to 15 minutes per week, and teams 15 to 30 minutes per month. Managers and leadership should make it a habit to let their direct reports know that they’ve reviewed their reports.

Reporting: up the chain they love it, down the chain they (often) loathe it.

Why executives love it is simple: they are end responsible for pretty much everything and (good) reporting helps them stay on top of the things that matter.

Why managers and employees loathe it is also easy to understand: the benefit of reporting is unclear, it can take up a lot of time, and they’re not even sure their reports are actually being looked at…

All of these issues are actually easy to tackle. Let’s go!

Progress reporting matters… A LOT

Reporting helps you achieve goals, period.

Studies show that up to 90% of companies fail to achieve the goals they’ve set for themselves. Having been in this market for over a decade and having worked with thousands of organizations across the globe, we have unique insights into what drives goal achievement.

Our most valuable insight?

Regardless of size, industry, and geography, updating and reviewing goals’ progress more frequently consistently leads to higher goal attainment. 

To explore the correlation between updating / reviewing goal progress and achieving goals, we evaluated a randomized sample of 500 companies with over 30.000 employees who had defined over 250.000 goals. Then we split up the companies into two segments: those with a high percentage of goals achieved and those with a low percentage of goals achieved.

We found that employees who updated progress on their goals 2.5 times more often as others, achieved on average 2 times more goals. That’s an incredible return on investment!

Embedding goals in Performance reviews, as so many HR tools try to make you believe, isn’t a viable substitute. Performance reviews always look backward and thus have little to no influence on your current goals’ progress.

Progress reporting shouldn’t be time-consuming

Of course it depends a little on what you are reporting on. But we’re focusing on strategy execution and goals (e.g., OKRs) here.

For employees, reporting once a week is sufficient. That means it’s sufficient for employees to take 5 to 15 minutes per week to update and review progress for their goals, and to answer a few questions to share how their week has been (also called Reflections). That’s it. Whether you love or hate reporting back to your manager and senior leadership, it wouldn’t be a good sign if you consider this too much to ask.

For teams, reporting once a month is usually sufficient. At team-level the report is more of a review: How did our KPIs perform last month? Are we still on track to achieve all our OKRs? Which victories should we celebrate? And what are the challenges that we see ahead of us? Such a review takes a little more time of course: 15 to 30 minutes.

A good OKR or goal management software makes this a breeze by: (i) letting you customize how often you wish to report on progress, (ii) allowing you to report progress however you prefer (mobile, Slack/Teams, or desktop), and (iii) sending out automated reminders.

Progress reports should be reviewed

Other than boosting goal attainment, progress reporting has another major benefit: it improves employee engagement and motivation. Engagement and motivation can further increase goal attainment, creating a powerful execution loop.

For ambitious and successful employees, reporting on progress provides an opportunity to shine and make sure that their hard work is being noticed by their manager and senior leadership. That only works, of course, if the manager lets the employee know that they’ve seen and reviewed the report. 

It’s something the manager should do anyway, as they are end responsible for their direct reports’ goals.

A good OKR or goal management software makes it easy for managers to do so.

Other best practices

Here are a few more best practices to help you get the most out progress reporting:

• Recognize hard work and celebrate wins.
  Eg, Give Kudos whenever appropriate.
• Stay consistent with your reports.
  Eg, make sure progress is reported at set intervals.
  
• Highlight next steps that need to be taken.
  Eg, Discuss blockers and potential solutions.
  
  

Software to the rescue

I’ve said it a few times now, because it’s true: A good OKR or goal management software makes progress reporting for managers and employees a piece of cake.

There are many tools on the market, so here are 8 important criteria that will help you find the right software:

1. Customizable frequencies for progress reporting at employee- and team-level.
   You want to create progress reports at set intervals and avoid having to create on-the-fly reports, which is chaotic. At employee-level you want to report more frequently than at team-level, because — as explained above — the content of each report is different. Therefore, employees typically report their progress once a week, and teams once a month — but you want to be able to adjust this to the specific needs of your organization.

2. Customizable and automated reminders.
   Employees and teams shouldn’t have to remind themselves to report their progress. That brainspace is better reserved for value-adding tasks such working on goals. Make sure the process is reactive instead of proactive by sending out automated reminders to your team. And of course you want to be able to customize when exactly the reminders should be sent.

3. Option to enrich progress reports with additional information such as Reflections or a Pulse survey.
   Progress reports offer a great opportunity for employees to provide a broader update on the cycle, in addition to giving progress updates on their goals. What were the highlights of the week? Any wins that are worth celebrating? Is the employee struggling with anything that the manager can support him or her with? I call these questions Reflections, as they encourage the employee to reflect on the past week and they help surface important information to his/her manager and senior leadership. 
   
   Also for teams it will be valuable to get a broader update on the cycle, in addition to an update on how their goals performed. This is often called a Monthly Business Review or simply Review. 

4. Progress reports are stored on the platform.
   Progress reports build up an important history of an employee’s or team’s track record. They can also contain valuable insights and learnings. Obviously, you don’t want this valuable information to go lost. Therefore, your progress reports should be stored on the platform and be easily accessible for future reference.

5. Managers are automatically notified about new progress reports from their direct reports.
   Obviously, you want to avoid managers logging into a software and hitting refresh to see if their direct reports’ latest progress reports are already available for review. Managers should automatically be notified when one of their direct reports has submitted a new progress report.

6. Ability to subscribe to progress reports from teams.
   For similar reasons, team members and senior leadership should automatically be notified when a team’s new progress report is ready.
   

7. Ability to comment on reports.
   Progress reports are a great, asynchronous way for a manager and his/her direct reports to stay in sync — without the need for a meeting. Personally, I have reduced the frequency of my 1:1s with my direct reports from weekly to bi-weekly, freeing up almost 2 full working days per month!
   
   For this to work well, you need to be able to comment on Progress reports. This allows you to ask questions to which the employee can then reply.
   
   You also need commenting to let a direct report know that you’ve reviewed their latest progress report and to keep them motivated and engaged.

8. Surfacing valuable context for progress.
   Without proper context, seeing how progress evolves often creates more questions than it answers. Therefore, your progress reports should surface all the relevant comments and notes. Ideally, someone else can even respond directly by adding a threaded message.

Perdoo goes a step further by integrating Progress reports with 1:1s. You’re welcome to give Perdoo a try — it’s free for up to 5 people.