In business, the main reason for finding metrics of any kind is to know the details that can contribute to future decisions. If a strategy fails, a company could use metrics to identify specific problems areas. On the other hand, if a business strategy succeeds or performs above expectations, the company could use metrics to determine the areas, tasks or actions that contributed to the achievements.
The aim is to have a detailed source for monitoring how things have been done so that improvement can be facilitated. Human Resource Metrics are important to businesses too.
Human Resource metrics or HR metrics (as they are often called) are figures and data which a company or organisation uses to determine or track their human capital. With key HR metrics, the organisation can understand how things are working; examine the effectiveness of the ideas, strategies and methods of their human resources team.
Considering that there is always room for improvement, the metrics are considered as a tool for growth. However, there is more to what you can do with the HR metrics.
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What Are the 15 Key HR Metrics?
Paying attention to all the existing metrics can be monumental and demanding. However, keeping tabs on the key HR metrics can make a lot of difference in both time management and employee monitoring.
We will talk about the 15 key HR metrics by starting with the benefits of observing them.
Here are some of the benefits of utilising the right metrics:
- HR can leverage historical data to make a better decision and easily identify the right talent for a specific task from the data.
- These metrics help organisations ascertain if employees are making full use of training opportunities.
- HR can track activity and report numbers of common areas like employee engagement, retention and performance.
15 Important HR Metrics You Should Be Measuring
Time to Hire
This is the duration from when a job posting is made available to the public to the day an offer is accepted for the position from a candidate.
Acceptance Rate
This the number of offer letters an organisation gives divided by the number of offers candidates accepted.
Cost per Hire
This answers the question, what is the average cost of recruiting a new employee. This number is accurately generated by adding up both external and internal hiring costs and dividing the total by the number of employees that are hired at the given time.
Demographic
This is the overall characteristics of the workforce, and it includes gender, age, length of service and education level.
Headcount
This is the number of employees in the whole organisation or the number of employees in a department or team which the metrics covers.
Time to Productivity
This is the time it takes a new hire to blend into the system, culture or environment of an organisation, especially the time he or she starts working at a level considered as maximum productivity.
New-Hire Turnover
This is the number of new employees that leave within a period, for example, the first year of employment.
Talent Satisfaction
This is one of the human resource metrics that answers the question, how satisfied are employees while working on the job. Satisfaction isn’t only about money, especially for fresh and young talents who want the most of their career.
Factors such as work-life balance, work environment and sustainable culture are all important. Talent satisfaction can be determined using periodic surveys.
Employee Productivity Index
This should be measured based on the employee’s position. The expected output for each position should be identified. However, the general formula for calculating productivity is the value of useful outputs divided by the total costs to obtain outputs. In a more financial sense, productivity is measured by total revenue divided by total cost.
Training Efficiency
This is used to determine the effectiveness of the training employees have undergone. It can be determined by using different methods, such as scheduling a test after each training.
Training Expenses per Employee
This is the cost of training an employee. It is measured by dividing the total cost of training programs and courses by the number of employees who partake in training.
Revenue per Employee
This metric can show the overall success or otherwise of an organisation. It is measured by dividing the revenue by the total number of employees.
Effectiveness of HR Software
This measures the effectiveness of HR software, for instance, the effectiveness of an LMS (learning management system) can be influenced by the average time on the platform, the number of active users, total time on the platform per user in a month, session length, software retention, and screen flow.
Absence Rate
This is the rate of employee’s absences. It is the rate of absenteeism as a percentage of the total working days among the total number of employees. This could determine a common behaviour if a certain category of employees are calling in sick or are being absent often.
Overtime Hours
This works along with the absenteeism rate. It could help to determine the level of workload employees are supporting. If employees are engaged and love their job, they are likely to work overtime. However, companies should know when the increase in overtime hours is a result of understaffing or too much pressure.
If the overtime hours increase all of a sudden, there might be two possible reasons: the volume of orders or economic growth. Notice the cause and take adequate measures as soon as possible before workload decreases employee’s motivation and in turn, affect productivity and absenteeism rate.
Conclusion
Metrics facilitate improvements. They could show a trend which can be used to navigate or maximise future situations. That said, HR metrics should be taken seriously. They are like the lens for monitoring growth or decline of a business. However, putting an effort to measure metrics can seem like a load of work because there are a lot of things to break down and understand.
In that regard, start with the list in this article. They are 15 in total, and they could make a lot of difference in improving the productivity of employees. Have it in mind that you are not only monitoring the effectiveness of your HR department, but you are also committing to the growth of other employees and your organisation. And this would definitely be rewarding.
Beyond monitoring and measuring these high impact metrics, HR professionals and business leaders must also understand the critical job roles and functions within the organisation that can be outsourced to drive massive revenue growth and increase the profitability of the organisation. Read this article to find out the Top 7 Roles you can Outsource to Drive Revenue Growth
