HR Metrics & Analytics

I consider the single biggest fault with corporate and external recruiting functions to be their almost universal failure to measure the quality (or performance) of the people they hire. Nearly every other “overhead” function, from supply chain to package delivery, has jumped on the ISO or six-sigma bandwagon, but recruiting …

You can’t improve what you don’t measure, so metrics are a crucial element of great recruiting. I recommend three basic approaches to employment metrics. The first is a “dashboard” (like a car dashboard), which is so named because it allows you to continually monitor all of the vital elements in …

If an airline bought a new 747, and then let it sit for two months on the runway because they didn’t have a pilot, what would the cost be to the airline? In other words what is the cost of a vacant position? Many firms calculate the cost of a …

Managers are continually asking for a higher quality of candidate, while recruiters tend to focus on the cost or the speed of the hire. The quality of the applicant is clearly the superior factor. There are many ways to measure the quality of the applicants (before you hire them). Some …

I am continually surprised at managers who are surprised when one of their own top people quits. Identifying who is likely to leave is relatively easy-if you are aggressive and think ahead. Some firms have reached as high as 75% accuracy in predicting who is likely to leave. With a …

Most employment selection systems are so bad that if you submitted the resumes of your own firm’s top performers, they probably wouldn’t get re-hired. It’s not as unusual as you might think. Most selection systems fail to track their own effectiveness. Now before you get nervous, be aware that checking …

The two hottest issues in the Silicon Valley are the attraction and retention of top talent. I am often asked by very tired recruiters “what is the secret to getting them to say “yes” and in “keeping them” so I can get off of this “recruit, lose, and recruit again” …

If your company has a turnover of 20% per year and all of your new hires are mediocre, it will only take 5 years for all of your entire workforce to be mediocre. The cost of a “bad hire” for a software engineer can exceed a million dollars, for a …

I hear HR professionals say they want to be strategic but often their actions indicate otherwise. Take the all too commonly used “cost per hire” metric. Sure it’s used by lots of people but so is astrology. Let me explain what’s wrong with it and how it could be improved. What’s …

Don’t let CEOs read this, they might want answers! Most HR measurements miss the boat! Many HR departments say they are a “business partner” but few can provide any real evidence that they are having a strategic business impact. After years of studying CEO expectations of HR I’ve compiled a …