Getting a hold of your metrics means a lot more than just refining the way in which you measure and collect information on the state of your company’s hiring function. In order to truly get the most out of your hard work, blood, sweat and spread sheets, your metrics have to do more than just collect dust. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of accurate measurement, but recording metrics for metrics sake just isn’t the point of the whole exercise. The point of this data is improvement, and the potential that good metrics have for growing your hiring function is immense. The only problem is that, much of the time, the same HR people who put in the time to collect and catalog the right metrics can’t quite tell the story that the data is pointing at. Even if the numbers are all laid out in front of you and your executives, the bottom line and organizational impact of recent HR decisions and your hiring function as a whole can still be lost in translation.
Before we get into the way that metrics should be packaged and presented to people outside of HR, we need to get the metrics straight. Hopefully, you already have more metrics than you know what to do with. If you need to start from the ground up or just want to brush up on the fundamentals, here’s “Recruiting Metrics 101,” one of our White Papers which details the best ways to record and report hiring metrics.
To get things started, I’ll paint you a little picture of where your metrics should be. At a minimum, your hiring metrics need to accurately measure:
- The source of each hire that you make (referral, job board, etc.).
- Days to Present- Days from launch of job until the candidate hired was first presented to the hiring manager.
- Days to Accept- Days from launch of job until candidate accepts the job offer.
- Recruiting Cost Ratio- Total cost of recruiting staff/tech/resources divided by compensation hired from those efforts.
- Retention Rate of Employees- Percentage of new hires still employed at different time benchmarks (90 days, 6 months, 12 months, etc.)
- Performance of Employees- Percentage of objectives achieved or hiring manager satisfaction survey of new hire performance at different time benchmarks (90 days, 6 months, 12 months, etc.)
There are plenty of other metrics, such as hiring manager satisfaction, that are important, but the ones on this list should be your bread and butter. With these figures alone, you can determine: which sources are most efficient at providing quality candidates, the efficiency of your company’s interviewing process, as well as how committed the average hire is to your company. Like I said, this is the bare minimum as far as metrics goes, but keeping track of these figures will at least give you an idea of where your hiring function is and reveal any problems that you may have with sourcing/interviewing inefficiency or retention.
Once you’ve gotten a hold of the numbers, it’s time to get a hold of the way that you’ll present them to the higher ups at your company. Try to look at it from their perspective. They’re focused on the big picture, the bottom line. This makes it your task to present the problems with your hiring function in a way that reflects the problem’s impact on the company as a whole. It’s one thing to say that retention has dropped by 18% in the last 2 years, but expressing this in terms of cost to the company will get you a lot further in your efforts to convince your execs that HR is worth investing in.
In other words, money talks. Instead of reading the laundry list of statistics and figures, tell a story. Tell them where your hiring is, why that’s costing you, and the benefits that improvement will bring.
Think ROI people! You can bet your boots that the executives at your company are.
This article was contributed by RPOA member, Accolo, Inc.
Accolo is about the relentless pursuit of connecting the two people that matter; the hiring manager and the person who is the perfect fit for the job.
It’s no secret that hiring the right person for each role can positively impact a company’s ability to execute its mission, reach its milestones and ultimately increase shareholder value. A well crafted and implemented hiring program also impacts the company’s brand. By giving everyone who applies a fair shot at being considered for each job and getting back to each applicant regardless of the outcome, the person applying for the job is respected and, in turn, is more likely to think positively about the company. After all, each applicant may also be a consumer, shareholder, referral source, future hire, employee of a supplier, your brother, sister, cousin, mother (you get the idea) or someone else you care about. It’s just us! We are enthusiastically committed to removing the barriers between these two people.
We envision a time when everyone who wants a job can find one, and the person with the opening can fill it with minimal distraction. Imagine the impact of cutting national unemployment by 30% to 50% just by eliminating this noise between the opening and the ideally suited person. Further imagine that each and every person is treated fairly and with respect. See more.
