At a recent presentation to a group of 130 recruiters from one of the world’s largest media and entertainment companies, I was pleasantly surprised by their interest in recruiting metrics. Surprised because the usual response is a combination of disinterest and rolling eyes.

This group, though, had a different perspective than most, and it was refreshing as it quickly became clear that these recruiters were well- informed about the connection between measurement and performance. That made me wonder: Was this a fluke, or is the message about the value of HR metrics in enhancing business performance finally getting through?

It’s Not Just Numbers for Numbers’ Sake.
Over the past few years, corporate executives – facing mounting budget challenges – have been demanding more and more information about hiring statistics and recruiting effectiveness – and rightly so since “people” costs constitute half, or more, of a company’s expenses. Yet, as a Veritude Workforce Data Insights survey reveals, 57 percent of companies don’t track the impact of HR on their business.

As a result, organizations are embarking on initiatives to develop and track key HR metrics while at the same time, research organizations are designing more contemporary HR measures better tied to the needs of today’s business than traditional ones like time to fill, number of hires and cost per hire.

Metrics, after all, aligned with business objectives and operational capability, should be viewed as business-intelligence tools that help drive the behavior of people and organizations to improve performance. That’s why Veritude is pioneering the development and implementation of strategic HR metrics to create effective metrics programs that help our clients use these metrics as primary decision support tools to run their business.

The key is to go beyond activity-based measurements and focus instead on more meaningful metrics that are in sync with discrete business goals. So, for example, we urged one call-center client to pay less attention to aggregate turnover statistics and start concentrating on the quality of hire – more specifically, on the number of reps that pass their certification exams. That’s a more valid indicator of the underlying cause of turnover. The result: An immediate increase in the number of new hires who pass the certification exam which, in turn, cut 90-day turnover statistics substantially.

It’s All About the Business.
Implementing a metrics program sounds daunting but isn’t. It is, however, all about the business and as such, must be a collaborative endeavor that touches every part of the company. It must also be results-oriented – practical and useful, not theoretical. Here’s how to get started:

• Get out in the field to get input. You must understand the business objectives of the company overall and those of the individual business units, departments and individuals that’ll be doing the work to meet them. Go out to the business units and learn about their top goals, key performance indicators and critical success factors. These are your constituents. Ask them what HR or recruiting results will be necessary to help them achieve their objectives.

• Get HR in step with a complementary set of objectives. Armed with knowledge about the goals of the various lines of business, develop objectives to align HR with them. For example, a bioscience company that wants to increase the market share of one of its new drugs by 20 percent and at the same time improve profitability will need to retain its top scientists, attract key product marketing execs from rival firms and increase its sales force by 30 percent – all over the next 18 months. HR, then, needs to get historical and real-time metrics about turnover of both the scientist and sales positions; build and maintain a pipeline of sales candidates; and execute on the senior-level product marketing search.

• Get IT involved – sooner rather than later. There’s nothing quite like being told, “Great idea. Can’t do it.” Determine up front what you can and cannot track as well as how you’ll collect and deliver the metrics that matter. This is a heavily systems- dependent issue. Consult with your HR systems group and the IT organization, early and often. A best-practice approach in more sophisticated systems environments is to deliver flexible, “self-serve,” Web-based metrics dashboards and scorecards that generate a customized view of the data.

• Get in the zone, the comfort zone. The best measurement program around means nothing if no one uses the data it generates. So, cultivate an atmosphere of trust and adoption where colleagues recognize the relevance, accuracy and usefulness of the metrics reported. Make sure, for example, that the HR staff understands that you’re not putting in a performance-management system – rather it’s a business performance-enabling program.

• Get everyone on the same page. Clear, consistent and frequent communication not only helps underscore the significance of your metrics program, it helps refine it. By keeping everyone involved in each step of the development process, you’ll get input, ideas and buy-in that increase the likelihood of success. Your communication plan should even include mock reports with test data to get a tangible idea of what your metrics analysis will yield and whether it’s what your constituents want and need.

• Get going. You could spend months debating and analyzing the finer points of implementing a metrics program – or, you could just do it. Do that. It’s better to get started and refine as you go than to just talk. I’ve seen new metrics programs implemented in 30 days and seen them make a difference. The dirty little secret is that a metrics program is never “done.” It needs constant evaluation, tweaking and, on occasion, wholesale changes. Waiting, or delaying, won’t change that. So, as your business changes, what you need to measure and how you measure it will change. Remember: It’s all about the business.