KRA

KRA stands for Key Responsibility Areas

These directly follow from job description of a person and represents the areas in which he or she is expected to perform.

Often Managers face difficulty in creating Goals (Key Responsibility Areas or KRAs) for their team members or company. These goals can be used for conducting performance appraisals, in measuring productivity on a periodic basis as also aligning groups of employees to a common set of tasks. While most managers are aware of job responsibilities of their teams, they find it difficult to shape it in a written form. Others may have ineffective writing skills or may not understand terminology – and hence face challenges in articulating the targets in an unambiguous manner. Here we are sharing some tips that will help users to write Goals from the Job Descriptions. We will cover the goals for a Sales Manager as an example after that.

SMART: A Smart Goal (KRA) is one which is:

Specific : Clearly stated what to do and how to do?

Measurable: States how the performance will be measured.

Attainable: The manager and employee agree that the Goal targets can be achieved.

Relevant: To the employees job role, the organization and the business environment.

Time Bound: States a time frame.

How to WRITE SMART Goals (KRAs)?

Here are the 9 steps to help you write Goals (KRAs) from Job 

Descriptions:

Go through the Job Description of the employee. If the Job Description does not appear relevant, talk to the employee and to their manager.

Try to find out exactly what the employee is supposed to achieve in their job.

Make a list of the functions and responsibilities that are critical to the job.

Categorize these critical functions and responsibilities in two sections:

Those that can be measured in numbers, percentages or yes/no answers. Examples: Number of new hires, number of trainings conducted, Number of new clients, Percentage increase in revenue, Number of customer issues addressed.

Those that cannot be measured easily in numbers or calculated: Examples: Brand value, Customer satisfaction, Employee engagement

The former are the ones that can be converted to SMART Goals. Please note that all goals are measurable (even the latter category) but we only consider those which are measurable currently.

Make a list of all critical functions.

Write a short self-explanatory definition of each Goal.

If you plan to follow BSC (Balanced Score Card) Pattern, then categorize each goal into one of the following categories: Customer, Financial, Internal Business Process and Learning & Growth.

Thereafter, describe each Goal (KRA). Make sure you mention a measurable target and a realistic timeframe based on your business plan.

Writing Goals (KRAs) for Critical Functions for a Sales Manager: An Example

I picked up job description of a Sales Manager in a company and identified 7 functions that are critical to a Sales Manager job and can be measured quantitatively. I have also included the BSC category against each

Here are the KRA (Goals) based on the critical functions for a Sales Manager. First I wrote the definition for the KRA and then gave a description along with measure and time line.

Goal (KRA)	Category	Definition and Measures
Improve Performance of Sales Executives	Learning & Growth	To ensure that all sales executives meet/exceed the sales targets provided to them.Track the performance of sales team and guide them consistently meet sales targets.Target: US$ 500,000 per quarter for the whole team.
Development of Sales Action Plans	Customer	Conducts market research and develops sales plans and updates periodically based on changing market scenarios and insights from the prior quarters.Sales plan must be reported every quarter to management team for analysis and approval.Target: Review, update, management approvals on a quarterly basis
Management reporting on Sales Performance	Internal Business Process	Create and send accurate monthly reports.Reports should indicate the following: Plan vs achieved Reasons for any shortfalls SWOT analysis. Next month targets Target: Reports to be submitted by 7th of Every Month for the prior month.
Customer engagement	Customer	To ensure that customers are happy with our services and their needs are being metTo meet customers, get their feedback on customer feedback form and discuss the same in the quarterly management meeting.Target: 3 customer meetings and feedbacks every month.
Create and submit proposals and responses to RFQs	Customer	Reply to Request for Proposals, Tender Notices, and Price Quotations in a Timely manner.Submit a competitive analysis, budgeting, expected closure price and customer details in the separate customer profile document.Target: All Proposals to be submitted for management review at least 3 days prior to submission date
Timely Collections	Finance	To ensure that the customers clear their dues within existing timelines.Work with the accounts to identify any delays and with the Operations to mitigate any issues being seen at the client end.Target: Improvement in cash flow by 7% QoQ Decrease in receivables by over 60 days by 25% in Q1, 20% in Q2, 35% in Q3 and 20% in Q4
Adherence to company policy	Internal business process	To ensure that the company policies are followed by all team members and the following activities are carried out as per the assigned SLA Application for leave and its approval within 3 days. Filling in the travel sheets with approvals from you Submission of expense reimbursements within 5 days of completion of travel Nominations for rewards on quarterly basis Nominations for training – half yearly basis Target: As per SLA in the company policy document