I’ve been keeping statistics on a range of HR measures for years now. However, except for recruitment costs, nobody seems to be interested in them. Should I just give up?
I’ve been keeping statistics on a range of HR measures for years now. However, except for recruitment costs, nobody seems to be interested in them. Should I just give up?
– HR manager in insurance, Sydney
The reason that most managers are no longer interested in HR measures is simply that the measures employed by most HR practitioners are now too far out of date. HR managers need to develop a new set of measures which are much more relevant to the organisation in today’s global climate, with today’s competitive pressures. Critically, the new measures must absolutely be aligned with the organisational five year plan.
So the best place to start is to work out what is the organisation plan. Two critical factors of the plan will be how best to please the customers of the organisation and how best to improve the profits of the organisation and please the shareholders. It is interesting that the third possible factor, if it exists at all, is usually how best to please the employees of the organisation. Except in world leading organisations, making the employees happy is not the first priority, which is somewhat disappointing for HR practitioners. But that is the reality. So the HR practitioners’paradigm has to change.
The first step is to work out what measures and metrics are useful for the organisation, today. Textbooks, working groups and industry groups are all useful sources to provide you with literally hundreds of measures. Only some will be right for your organisation because your organisation has a unique plan and unique people.
Now, the best way to find out which HR measures mean something today is to take a short list of tailored measures to your line managers and have a meaningful discussion with them. The line managers will likely be surprised at first but will usually tell you what you need to know because they want to produce better outcomes themselves. Even if they don’t, move on and try the next manager, try someone from the finance department, or the administration department or a known friendly manager. They all want to keep their top people and they usually want to progress their own career.
They actually need your input. But they need HR reporting which is relevant for their team and themselves. Part of the new HR journey is to match these management reporting needs with those of the organisation plan.
By Peter Vlant, director of www.ihr3.com, founder of Performance Management Institute of Australia.
