OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have had somewhat of a resurgence, especially amongst startups, because of the framework’s ability to support alignment across teams. While it’s always been a challenge, having a more structured process around this alignment has become a necessity as teams go remote post-pandemic. For remote teams, it’s hard to soak in what’s going on around you and understand what your team is working on because you’re not sitting next to them or talking to them on a constant basis.

This was a key problem for one of our customers, Charlie Mart, Chief of Staff at Huzzle:

“The problem that prompted us to start implementing OKRs within my company, was the fact that I felt like as a remote company, everyone lacked transparency and lacked enough direction in what they were doing. It was hard for people to know where they needed to prioritise and what the main OKR or KPI that they needed to really push towards were. So this was about connecting the entire company as a whole, OKRs was about connecting the company in that way.”

Going remote has brought many benefits, for both business and employees, but has also made good communication require more intention to facilitate. Nowadays, we have all the tools necessary to run a business fully remote, it’s just a matter of putting the processes in place and building the right culture around them. For the team at Huzzle, a lack of direction and transparency around business goals was a challenge they had yet to crack.

About Huzzle

Huzzle is a dynamic early-career platform that connects students, student societies, and employers to create meaningful career opportunities. Originally launched as a CRM for pre-professional student societies, Huzzle has expanded into a comprehensive career companion used by over 100,000 students across the UK. The platform offers companies unique access to these talents by facilitating co-hosted events with more than 1,000 diverse societies, as well as through role promotions and personalised direct messaging campaigns. With research showing that students involved in initiatives are three times more hireable and perceived as 18% more career-ready, Huzzle is well-positioned to bridge the gap between emerging talent and prospective employers.

We had the opportunity to speak with Charlie Mart, Huzzle's Chief of Staff, to gain insight into how the company leverages tools like Tability to manage their strategy and operations. Based in London, Huzzle operates as a fully remote team, reflecting their commitment to flexibility and modern work practices. Charlie explained to us the challenges they face as a fully remote team and how they’ve found great success using Tability to to help scale their business and keep things moving in the right direction.

Before Tability: A management nightmare

Huzzle’s journey with OKRs started as a manual and time-consuming process, relying heavily on Google Sheets. Charlie took on the task of building the entire dashboard from scratch.

“Prior to coming across Tability, I was using spreadsheets. So I had created a Google sheet that I was using to track [our OKRs]. It was so much harder to use, and it was so much harder for other people to use.”

Beyond initial set up, using and maintaining this system quickly became an exhausting routine. At the start of each month, Charlie would spend hours preparing the Google Sheet for the new cycle. This process involved taking screenshots of their OKR progress, embedding those images into a Notion page for historical tracking, and then wiping the sheet clean to start the process all over again. “There was a lot more management from my side in terms of making sure the sheet functioned correctly and making sure people knew how to use it, because of course it's a lot less intuitive than a product like Tability… For example, it had to be the case that every month I had to kind of reset it so that the percentages were back to zero and stuff like that,” Charlie explains. The manual upkeep turned what should have been a strategic exercise into an overwhelming chore. 

Not only that, because of how complex the sheet was, it wasn’t easy for his team members to use either. This made getting the team to engage with this cumbersome system was an uphill battle. Charlie found himself constantly “nagging” people to complete their check-ins, having to follow up individually just to keep the OKRs on track. “I felt like I had to check up on people more regularly to make sure they were putting in goals and remembering to update them,” he said. The constant need to nag not only added to his stress but created a negative association with the process for the team.

“As a whole, the OKRs weren’t as impactful when I had to constantly push people. It made the whole exercise feel less meaningful and more like a box-ticking exercise.”

The frustration was mutual, as team members began to disengage, viewing the OKRs as more of a burden than a tool for growth.

After Tability: A simplified process for everyone to stay on track

While OKRs have been a cornerstone in Huzzle’s strategy and process for some time, it had become clear to Charlie that their team needed a more streamlined and organised process around their OKRs. It was time to get their OKRs out of spreadsheets. That’s when Charlie found Tability.

“The main problem Tability solved for us was having a really easy way for everyone to manage and update their OKRs, so that everyone could see transparently and understand transparently as well.”

Weekly reminders via Slack

It’s a simple thing, but success with OKRs starts with consistency. Weekly check-ins are the absolute key to making sure that they stick and have a positive impact on the business. For Huzzle, having automated reminders completely changed how they used and viewed the OKR framework.

“So that's been a really big thing about Tability that’s streamlined. It is actually the reminders. We just integrated it to Slack and everyone gets a reminder every Monday. It makes my life so much easier because I don't need to worry about whether people are doing it. I know that people remember and people do it now.” Using Tability and the Slack integration, Chalie’s team gets a reminder every week to update their goals and the process is fully automated. He continues, “whereas with a Google sheet, it would have been another hour at the beginning of every week, making sure I message people saying, ‘hey, remember to do your OKRs, blah, blah, blah.’”

The reminders are a simple but powerful feature. It not only relieved Charlie from having to go “nagging” all of his teammates; automated reminders and Tability’s simple check-ins, removed all the friction and negative association around the check-in as well. “Now I think people see it as a really nice check-in every Monday to make sure they have their own kind of reflection, to make sure they're on track with their own goals. So it's also changed the way I think our people see OKRs, which is great.”

When both leadership and the teams find real value in tracking and updating their OKRs, everything flows much better. The workload is removed from leadership, and the team can have that time to reflect and really connect beyond their immediate job, and with the business as a whole.

“Now I think people see it as a really nice check-in every Monday to make sure they have their own kind of reflection, to make sure they're on track with their own goals. So Tability has also changed the way I think our people see OKRs, which is great.”

A simplified quarterly process

Charlie and the leadership team set goals every quarter, and the weekly reminders basically take care of the rest. Every week, the leadership team can jump into Tability in his Focus page and get an overview of everything that’s happening across the org. “Yeah, I would just go to My Focus, and then basically just scroll through, have a look and see if there's anything that's relevant and I want to touch up on with people.” They can easily scan through all of the latest check-ins and see if anything needs their attention.

“It's a very simple, low touch process at the moment. So, yeah, we have the quarterly goal creation stage, and then you just have people do their check-ins every Monday.” They are able to maintain a consistent cadence on their OKRs with automated reminders, and mostly keep the entire process asynchronous. This is a huge benefit for a remote team where finding consistent time to catch up and gather as a group can be difficult in itself.

Beyond the weekly ritual, Charlie and the leadership team will gather for a monthly check up on the OKR progress. This essentially is a meeting to review all the progress so far and talk more in depth about what’s been said already in the check-ins from week-to-week.

Conclusion: Bringing clarity and alignment to remote teams

For remote teams like Huzzle, maintaining clear direction and alignment can be challenging, but with Tability, they’ve found a solution that makes the process intuitive and engaging. The shift from cumbersome spreadsheets to a streamlined platform has not only saved time but has also transformed how the team views and interacts with OKRs. Tability has turned a once tedious task into a seamless part of their routine, empowering the team to stay focused, aligned, and motivated.

By leveraging Tability’s features like automated reminders and easy-to-use check-ins, Huzzle has unlocked a more positive and proactive approach to goal setting and tracking. This shift has helped create a culture of continuous improvement and clarity, proving that with the right tools and culture, remote teams can thrive and achieve their goals with confidence.