How Life Sciences Companies Can Use OKRs

The life sciences sector is evolving. Rapid growth and healthy hiring budgets are being replaced by hiring slowdowns and a focus on meeting the demands of the existing workforce. 

That means rather than focusing on talent acquisition, HR teams in this industry are now homing in on talent retention. And one of their main challenges is how to increase levels of employee engagement without increasing compensation. In Lattice’s 2025 State of People Strategy survey, 63% of HR professionals in the life sciences industry said their top choice to achieve this goal was to provide clarity around performance expectations.

While biotech companies traditionally relied on SMART goals for setting performance expectations, there’s a new kid in town. Objectives and key results (OKRs) can be a more effective framework to provide employees with the clarity they crave. 

Challenges in the Life Sciences Industry

Even though the life sciences industry is resilient, the sector is still facing a range of challenges, including the following.

1. Hiring Slowdowns and Talent Shortages

The US Life Sciences Talent Trends 2024 report by CBRE found that employment within the biotechnology research and development (R&D) and pharmaceutical/medicine manufacturing industries only grew 0.2% from June 2022 to March 2024. That rate comes as a significant reduction from the growth of 15.8% in the same timespan from 2020 to 2022.

This hiring slowdown is accompanied by a continuing demand for top talent, who are choosing their organizations carefully. Employees are now more discerning and demanding about which companies they work for, particularly when it comes to sustainability standards, according to insights from Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trends report.

2. Embracing Organizational Agility

The life sciences industry has traditionally relied on technical problem-solving (using expertise and falling back on best practices), according to a 2018 McKinsey and Company article. However, as the piece noted, the industry’s recent technological advancements, investment trends, and increasing use of artificial intelligence have created a complex, fast-moving landscape. 

Navigating these developments means companies must move toward becoming more adaptive and agile — something that OKRs can promote when used effectively. 

3. Increasing Operational Efficiency

The need for greater agility, combined with a talent shortage and hiring slowdowns, means that life sciences companies — specifically biotech and biopharma — need to find ways to increase productivity without adding to their workforce. 

Providing clarity around performance expectations is one of the best ways for life sciences companies to boost the engagement and motivation of their people. For companies without any structured performance management strategies in place, this is even more critical.

As an example, Metabolon, the global leader in metabolomics, previously had no performance management process in place. And the impact on employees was undeniable. 

“Nobody really knew if they were doing good, bad, or indifferent,” said Rachel Bowman, director of global HR operations at Metabolon. “Everybody received the same merit increases, it was all even across the board — so there wasn’t a whole level of accountability and differentiation amongst performance. It also made it really challenging to determine what is a promotion, what does a career path look like, and what does this experience look like for somebody who wants to have a long-term career at Metabolon.”

One strategy the company used to resolve these issues was rolling out OKRs. By using OKRs to provide clarity on metrics and promote transparent conversations around performance, Metabolon was able to show employees how their work ladders up to the organization’s success, which in turn motivates them to perform their best. 

Why Biotech Companies Should Use OKRs

Tackling the above challenges isn’t easy, but as the HR team at Metabolon discovered, the right goal-setting framework can help organizations manage their outcomes more effectively.

While SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) goals have been the traditional choice for performance management at life sciences companies, OKRs are a solid alternative, particularly for innovation-driven industries like biotech and biopharma.

One of the benefits of OKRs is that they require you to develop metrics to measure progress toward each objective. That way, OKRs provide a format to help you measure what matters and ignore the rest, which is crucial for keeping teams on target in ever-evolving industries.

OKRs vs. SMART Goals

SMART goals are one strategy for helping establish consistent, objective, and quantifiable targets for employees. While SMART goals are an effective way to articulate an end goal, they’re often focused on a single metric of success. But they don’t always define how to get there, leaving room for ambiguity on the steps needed to achieve that goal.

In contrast, OKRs specify not only what you want to achieve, but also how you’re going to achieve it. Below, we’ve compared the key differences between these two goal-setting frameworks.

When writing OKRs, you decide on an objective, plus five outcomes (or key results) that need to be achieved to reach that objective. The objective is a “strategic theme,” a qualitative goal that’s easy to understand and gives a clear sense of the business impact you’re trying to create.

OKRs aren’t just a way of writing out individual goals — the framework can also be used to create team and business goals while connecting individual performance to the bigger picture of organizational success. And in turn, this helps motivate, engage, and empower your workforce. 

How OKRs Empower Biotech and Biopharma Employees 

A 2022 Lattice and YouGov survey of UK employees revealed that workers need these five things in order to do their best work: 

Here’s how OKRs can help companies work toward four of these. 

1. Trust

Employees want to feel trusted by their managers and superiors but sometimes need help understanding how their day-to-day work connects to wider organizational objectives. By openly sharing organizational goals, OKRs help get everyone on the same page. 

Because each team sets OKRs that work toward these shared objectives, everyone understands exactly how their work contributes to the overall company mission — both at a team level and an individual one. And because OKRs create a sense of clarity, the OKR methodology also gives employees and teams the autonomy to make their own decisions, and the freedom to look for innovative solutions. 

2. Clear Responsibilities 

Employees want clarity on what they’re expected to do — but they don’t always get it. Our 2025 State of People Strategy survey revealed that only 26% of HR respondents from the life sciences industry trust their senior leadership to set realistic goals and expectations. 

When goals aren’t clear and realistic, employees may feel confused, unmotivated, and frustrated. This lack of clarity is also likely contributing to the strained mental health of employees in this industry as they work overtime to try to meet unrealistic expectations. 

Instead, OKRs and regular check-ins can be used to guide each employee’s responsibilities, keeping them informed and helping track progress. 

3. Regular Praise and Recognition 

Regular praise and recognition are crucial for employee engagement and motivation — but sometimes managers and HR teams aren’t sure what, exactly, they should praise. In our 2025 State of People Strategy survey, 70% of HR respondents in the life sciences industry said they struggle with quantifying the difference between “good” and “excellent” in performance reviews. 

OKRs can help fix this by creating measurable variables that help standardize performance reviews. By helping HR, managers, and employees understand what good looks like, OKRs make it more feasible for employees to be recognized — and rewarded — for their performance. 

4. Positive and Inclusive Company Culture 

As hiring within the life sciences industry starts to plateau (per the CBRE report above), organizations need to focus on retention. And because a strong company culture can improve your chances of retaining employees, that’s one place to start. OKRs can help transform your company culture by improving transparency and providing clearly defined goals. 

This cultural shift helps employees feel respected and supported by their leaders — two critical elements of a successful corporate culture. OKRs also enable cross-functional teamwork, helping create an inclusive culture where different teams can collaborate on complex projects. 

How to Set OKRs in Biotech Companies (With Examples)

Setting high-quality OKRs doesn’t have to be complicated. After all, you likely already know your top-level goals — you just need to connect how those goals relate to the objectives of the teams and individuals within the organization. Because the OKR framework is simple and transparent, it makes that connection crystal clear. 

1. Set company-level OKRs that keep everyone aligned.

Good OKRs should be meaningful and ambitious goals that help move the company forward. To avoid the overwhelm that comes with too many goals, choose a maximum of five, with three to five key results for each.

When setting objectives, aim high. Ask yourself:

• If we achieve this objective, will it have a major impact on the organization and/or our stakeholders?
• Will it be valuable?
• Will it drive change and improvement?

Then, set the key results — as outcomes or milestones — that accompany each objective. These should be quantifiable and time-limited. And remember that goals are also most effective when they’re set regularly. For best results, set them quarterly, not annually.

For organizational alignment, biotechnology company Forge Biologics used Lattice to provide broader visibility into the company’s goals. “I really think it's going to help connect our team to our company goals and mission better,” explained Liza Lewis, the organization’s head of human resources. 

2. Align team OKRs to company objectives.

Once you’ve set OKRs at a company level, it’s time to translate them into meaningful stretch goals at a team level. This process helps create alignment and connects each team’s work to the wider objectives of the whole organization.

The first thing to decide is if every team should have their own OKR goal, or if they’re only required at the department or business level.

Setting this level of OKRs should include top-down and bottom-up discussions, allowing team members, managers, and senior leaders to agree on where everyone’s time and energy is best spent. Each team should have three to five OKRs, and these should relate directly to at least one of the company OKRs. 

It’s important to set relevant, measurable goals, but this shouldn’t be an arduous process. Instead, OKRs are designed to be agile and evolving goals that change regularly as work progresses and the market changes. 

At a team level, OKRs are most effective when they focus on fostering mutual ownership and accountability. They should also be specific and clear, so everyone knows exactly what their contribution will be. 

3. Cascade OKRs to create meaningful individual goals. 

Individual employees sometimes feel like they aren’t involved in setting company and team goals. And this can make it hard for them to see how their contributions impact the entire organization.

While OKRs are typically used at a team and company level, they can also help create a cascading goal framework that aligns team OKRs with individual performance objectives or employee key performance indicators (KPIs). These personal goals help give employees a greater sense of ownership — and that buy-in feeds directly into their motivation, engagement, and performance. 

For all levels of OKRs, the right HR tech can help ensure alignment and drive strategic impact by providing a centralized platform that keeps goals front and center, not left on the sidelines. 

Metabolon used Lattice Engagement surveys to uncover that employees felt frustrated about the lack of clarity around their goals. “One of the most common feedback of employees was, ‘I don’t know where we are going as a company and I don’t know what the plan is,’” said Bowman. As a result of this feedback, the company started using Lattice OKRs & Goals to help provide transparency and clarity around both individual and company-wide goals. 

At many companies, the top-down integration and clarity provided by OKRs make employees feel more connected to the overall goals of the organization they work for. 

OKR Examples for the Biotech Industry 

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Use OKRs to create meaningful, measurable results.

This is an exciting time for life sciences companies, and OKRs help you take full advantage of the opportunities ahead. 

For a step-by-step guide on implementing OKRs in your business, check out our free workbook How to Set Meaningful and Effective OKRs.