It is amazing to me what gets measured in this world. Just say, Guiness Book of Records and you are now conjuring up outrageous tales of the biggest, fastest, most random anythings -- largest hand thrown pizza crust, the largest ball of string, or the longest distance keeping a table lifted with teeth (really?).

But, what about when you need helpful measurements? It is interesting to me where measurements and metrics can go so wrong. So, I am going to try and be helpful, as you face the umpteenth report for counts of this and lists of that being demanded from your organization. Beware and be prepared!

Why First…Then What

It is first important to look at why we need to know information about the workforce before we race off to create reports. Let’s face it, most data pulls are not that informative or that interesting. However, if we understand the goals for the organizations and the struggles the leaders are noodling, then we can start assessing what information would be helpful towards solving those problems. These conversations require a real dialog to get the best results.
Can you remember when you were a kid and were told to clean your room and you asked Why? The result and motivation was very different if you got the annoyed parent “Because!!!”, then if it was explained that Grandma was coming and she was staying in your room over night. The latter answer received much more care to the details. The same is true when needing to understand why the organization or individual is seeking information.
The Right What

After understanding the needs of your internal customer you can design the proper information content and put it into context. Take this real example of a lack of information making the problem worse.
A finance director is concerned about productivity and asks HR for the number of employees in each deparment. He runs his numbers and produces a cost and profit per employee and compares it to industry standards and his predecessor’s numbers. He thinks he has the right picture of productivity, but there were several problems in this scenario. He asked for the number of employees and that is what he received. However, the data didn’t include the differentiation between full-time and part-time employees, so his number was skewed. He didn’t include the number of contract workers being used in each department, thus he missed 8% of his workforce in the packing and office administration areas of the companies. He also didn’t get a picture of the trends over time on this number, he just received a single data point. This is a problem because the snapshot in time was right after the busiest part of the season was over, and the student workers were no longer on the payroll, so his numbers couldn’t measure the busy season’s productivity.
How successful do you think his recommendations are going to be based on these numbers? Without context of the information and proper comparrisons to the historical data, his analysis is going to be significantly flawed. He was focused on his numbers and didn’t focus on the dynamics of the organization’s workforce. It is critical that HR participate in the analysis of any details involving the workforce. Bring your talent, knowledge and data to the discussion.

Cheers,
Lois