How is your human resources team responding to the demands of today’s talent management landscape? More and more, HR departments are turning to their people data to respond to the competitive market and meet employee expectations — both of which look a lot different than they did a few short years ago. 70% of leaders say implementing people analytics is a top priority for their organization.
Data drives business and guides decision-making, but only if you’re looking at the right numbers. Many organizations struggle to understand which metrics are most important for them to focus on when it comes to recruiting, engaging, and retaining A-players.
Whether you want to improve diversity and inclusivity in your hiring process or are looking for new ways to track and measure employee performance in our ever-changing work environments, it’s crucial that you use a variety of data to inform your decisions.
Don’t know where to start? Keep reading to get a glimpse of our downloadable calendar, a 30-day roadmap of essential HR metrics to measure. Follow our roadmap and focus on a new data point each day to increase your understanding of your people and design HR strategies that work best for them.
70% of leaders say #PeopleAnalytics is a top priority. Start here with 30 days of valuable #HRMetrics to track from @ClearCompany:What are HR metrics?
Human resources metrics are quantitative data that analyze your real people data to describe your workforce. You’ve probably heard a variety of terms relating to HR metrics — just to name a few:
- HR data or people data
- HR analytics or HR data analytics
- People analytics
- Talent analytics
- Workforce analytics
While metrics and data typically refer to the data or numbers themselves, “analytics” terms refer to interpreting the numbers. Monitoring HR metrics is far less useful if you don’t analyze them to learn what they mean.
For example, you know that your employee turnover rate is unusually low for your industry. On its own, that’s a great HR metric to share with company leaders, clients, and candidates. But since your team also leverages HR analytics, you have context from more metrics that tell you what’s keeping your employees around.
In this case, you can see that turnover dipped after your company implemented a 90-day onboarding process and weekly one-on-ones with managers. With this information, you can prove the effectiveness of your new strategies and apply your knowledge to future HR challenges.
A Sneak Peek at 7 Key HR Metrics
Even seasoned HR professionals can get overwhelmed by the amount of data that’s at our fingertips today. That’s why the best HR teams are leveraging HR reporting and analytics software to collect data, analyze and report on it, and execute talent management strategies.
It’s also the reason we’re compiling these HR metrics that matter — to help your team focus on what’s most important. Before you begin your 30-day HR metrics journey, we’re sharing a sneak peek of the first week. Check out seven people data points you should be monitoring and why:
- Time to Hire: This metric tells you how long it takes to hire a candidate, from application to offer letter signing. Don’t confuse this with time to fill: the length of time roles are vacant, on average. Compare time to hire to your industry average to learn if you’re a competitive employer in your space or if a long hiring process is costing you top talent.
- Cost per Hire: The amount you spend on hiring says a lot about whether or not your strategies are as efficient as possible. Trends in hiring costs also tell you if you need to revamp your recruiting strategy or if your efforts at efficiency are paying off.
- Time to Productivity: How long does it take your new employees to become productive? Once you understand this metric, you can create workforce planning strategies that take time to productivity into account. That way, your teams are not just fully staffed, but fully staffed with 100% productive employees.
- New Hire Turnover: Losing new hires leads to productivity loss and high hiring costs. New hire turnover tells you valuable information about your talent acquisition process. Find out if your newly-implemented onboarding strategy is helping or hurting new hire retention, or dig into high new hire turnover concentrated in one department.
- Headcount: Does your current headcount match your ideal headcount, or better yet, your effective headcount? Understand your workforce so your staffing strategy reflects what’s happening now and how to reach your goals from there.
- Demographics: Demographics matter for so many reasons. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) matter more than ever to today’s workers. DEIB brings a wider range of perspectives, experiences, and ideas to your company. Research shows that more diverse organizations are more innovative and profitable. And most importantly, it’s the right thing to do. Stay on top of demographic trends to ensure you’re meeting your DEIB goals.
- Offer Acceptance Rate: Do your candidates tend to choose your company over other job offers, or do they leave offer letters unsigned in favor of other employers? The rate of offers extended to offers accepted helps your HR team gauge whether or not your company is popular with candidates. Use what you learn to find out how your team can make more attractive offers and hire top talent.
These HR metrics may seem basic, but they’re far from it. They can reveal critical insights, especially when you’re tracking a wide range of data points and using a robust HR analytics strategy. When you understand how HR metrics are intertwined, you’ll be on your way to becoming a data-driven HR function.
Keep the Human in Human Resources
Even though we’re collecting data in bigger quantities than ever, it’s important not to rely entirely on data alone. Don’t define your people by the numbers without asking any questions. Use HR metrics to see the big picture and spot where to dig deeper.
HR data should expand your understanding and help guide your decisions, rather than taking over the decision-making process entirely. It supplements your dynamic team, increasing their efficiency but not taking away their autonomy.
At ClearCompany, we believe that access to real-time data is essential to keep your business operating smoothly and profitably. Informed leaders are able to adapt to changes and stay ahead of the latest trends in recruiting, employee development, and HR software solutions. When you rely on advanced analytics and timely data, you can quickly and effectively elevate your talent strategy.
You can start incorporating data into your everyday processes with our 30-day HR metrics calendar. Focus on a new metric each day and enhance your understanding of your workforce. Click here to get your copy of our HR metrics calendar.
Want to go beyond these 30 metrics? Download our in-depth guide to 80+ HR Metrics That Matter for all the data you should be monitoring to keep your people strategies sharp.
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